Between
by Starlight226
Summary: It's a relationship that defies categorization, always caught somewhere in the between. Extended version/ companion to my fic Saltwater; everything from Superman's perspective.
1. Chapter 1

"Kal, I swear to gods, leave your front open one more time, and I will make sure you don't forget it again."

In spite of the abrasive tone coating the threat, I only smiled in response to Diana's words. "I'd like to see you try," I challenged teasingly, but I corrected my position before her all the same, angling my chest and shoulders oblique to where she stood before me.

"Better," she responded, eyeing my stance critically as she stepped closer, "But where's your weight?" And to prove that it was in the wrong place, she turned and shoved me on the side with enough force stumbling sideways. "Distribute your weight like you're supposed to, and I won't be able to do that as easily."

"I hope you're not letting this coaching thing go to your head," I said, righting myself and sliding into the defensive stance like she had taught me, trying to get all the focus points right. _Back foot out, shoulders angled, weight even across both feet, front arm high…_

"How could I? You haven't gotten it right yet," she responded dryly, approaching me again and tapping my back arm impatiently, "Where's that supposed to be?"

I moved my arm perpendicular below the other hand- the pose was designed to be a natural shield while still allowing a wide range of mobility. One hand was always up in defense, the other always back and ready to load a punch, the feet ready to push in any direction to evade or advance. It was one of several stances Diana had been drilling with me for the past two hours.

"Good," she said, when my stance was finally acceptable. "Now what if I moved here?" She sprang suddenly to my other side, and I rotated from the waist and switched my hands like she'd taught me. "Good," she responded, then moved again to my other side. "How about here?"

The jump-turn I did to change quickly into the correct position was apparently less than satisfactory, because as soon as my feet hit the ground again she struck me squarely in the chest with enough force to send me flying back into the wall.

"I told you if you did it again, I'd make sure it was the last time you forgot," she reminded me from where she stood in the middle of the room, now twenty feet away from me. "It won't do you any good to get your hands right if you leave your front exposed like that when you turn. Keep those shoulders _angled_."

She didn't sound very upset at me, but I couldn't help feeling more than a little frustrated. "It's not natural for me to angle away from someone when I'm facing them," I responded as I picked myself up and crossed the training room back towards her. "Especially not you." My stomach swooped as soon as I heard the accidental admission in those words, and I looked up quickly to gage her reaction.

She hadn't reacted whatsoever though, and instead of putting me on the spot for that response, she simply returned an equally ambiguous question. "If it was natural, you and I wouldn't be here, would we?"

It was certainly true, any way she meant it. This whole training session wouldn't have happened if Diana hadn't been so aghast when she discovered that I had little to no formal training in hand-to-hand combat, a fact that was always obvious any time an encounter with Kryptonite or red suns left me flightless and weaker than normal. Embarrassed by my inefficiency as a League member in any of those times, I had finally asked her one day if she would be willing to teach me at least a little of what she knew so that I would be more useful in those situations. Though she had seemed amused by the request but had graciously agreed, and though we were only in the early stages of training-just learning fundamentals like footwork and stances- I could tell I had made the right choice in asking her.

If she had meant her words in a more personal way though, they were still true. She was perhaps the only person I trusted enough to ask something like this from, or to willingly put myself in such an embarrassing situation with. And a trust like that never grows when two people hold back from each other.

She finally moved, dropping her own defensive posture and crossing to meet me in the middle of the training room. "One last drill, and then we're done for today," she said in the formal tone she slipped easily into when she went from the role of friend to instructor. "I'll change positions quickly around you while you try to change to the right position in response. Remember, it's a dance, Kal. Every action needs an equal and opposite reaction."

Her body slipped into an attack position, a move that seemed for her as natural as blinking, and I mirrored it by gracelessly sliding back into a defensive stance. "Good," she said, and then didn't bother asking if I was ready.

She circled me for a few moves, leaping from side to side almost too fast for me to follow but I did my best to shift appropriately and keep her in front of me, adjusting my pose based on the one she showed me. I must have surprised her by getting them all right, because she suddenly dropped her attack pose as I landed in the correct stance in front of her after a few minutes of that. "Not bad," she said with a smile. "Now what are you going to do if I move here?" She jumped into the air…and didn't come down.

"Okay, that's not fair, the whole point of this is to prepare for the times when I suddenly can't fly," I said, dropping my stance and putting my hands on my hips.

"Doesn't mean your enemies won't be able to," she said in a serious tone as she zoomed teasingly around me, but I saw the subtle smile on her lips and knew that formal training was over.

"Well in that case…"

She didn't rise high enough when I jumped after her, and I was able to pull her from the air. She maneuvered around my body lightly though and was tucked behind my back with an arm around my neck before my feet hit the ground again.

"Cheater," she said in my ear matter-of-factly as she wrenched one of my arms up behind me, "I know exactly how high you can jump when you're depowered, and that was two feet too high."

"Was it now?" I said as I tried to reach behind me and grab her with my free hand, but she evaded my reach easily. I gave up and grabbed the arm that was around my neck, and, holding her in place, threw myself backwards onto the ground in an attempt to catch her beneath me.

She'd obviously seen this coming though and twisted easily free of my grip at the last second, landing lightly on her feet while I crashed heavily to the ground.

"Next time we meet for this, I'm going to teach you how to conceal your intentions when you're fighting," she said casually, sauntering coolly to where I was lying, trying to catch my breath. "That's why I always beat you- I can read everything you're thinking."

"Really?" I asked with genuine surprise, but when she opened her mouth to respond I swung my leg around with superspeed and kicked her feet out from under her. "See that coming?" I couldn't help asking smugly as she tumbled down next to me.

She turned her head sharply and glared at me, and at first I thought I'd just earned myself another pounding for that little stunt. But then her glare abruptly turned to laughter and she dug an elbow painlessly into my ribs, tipping her face back up at the ceiling as her body relaxed completely against the floor. Her head rested on my outstretched arm, one of her calves haphazardly crossing mine, and I felt a distracting warmth seeping into me in those two finite areas as I watched her face, enchanted as always by what it did when she laughed.

She turned slightly into me and reached out to tangle a hand in my hair, fisting the curls and giving them a gentle tug as she smiled down at me. "You really are something else, Kal," she muttered, close enough that I felt the air currents that carried her words. Simple, familiar words, but words that I never understood. I only knew my expected reply as I reached out, wishing I could caress her face and pull her into a kiss. But I steered my hand instead to the end of her braid, the most remote part of her indeed, but a place I knew was safe. I gave her hair a gentle tug in return and forced my hand to fall back onto my side.

"So are you, Diana," was all I allowed myself to say. "So are you."


	2. Chapter 2

It hadn't always been like this between us.

Years go fast, and though we have known each other for such a seemingly short time, it already is difficult to remember what my life was like before she was in it. When we first met all those years ago, a time when she was still new in this world and the Justice League was still a work in progress, we were by definition strangers. By the time the League reached out to her and invited the new heroine to join our ranks, she was already well on her way to international notoriety. To the world, she went by several names- Wonder Woman, Princess Diana of the Amazons, and Ambassador of Themyscira. She was powerful, brilliant, fearless… magical. A source of both wonder and fear to all who beheld her.

We had that in common. And that was part of the reason she caught my attention.

She had become indispensible to the league almost immediately. She was a master in nearly every martial arts form and fluent in several languages, learning new ones with impossible speed and accuracy. Though she had caught our attention and warranted our contact because of her powers, her unexpected warmth and tenderness filled a void in the League we hadn't even known existed, and there formed an unspoken hope among us all that she would stay among us. A hope that, thank the gods, was fulfilled.

For a long time, I just observed her from a distance.

The most intriguing thing about her was the strange dichotomy of all she knew and didn't know. She had years of practice as a ruler and a warrior- something none of us had the benefit of- yet little to no experience with this world she was venturing into. She learned and adapted to everything new with impressive grace, but the fact remained that she had been raised in an ancient society and had never even seen a man- or a car-until she arrived in our world. Thanks to her diplomatic experience, she was many times the voice of reason within League debates, but nearly as often her martial upbringing made her the passionate and occasionally irrational opinion that needed to be diffused with a patient explanation. She brought a fresh perspective though on many things we took for granted, and I think everyone knew we were a better group because of it.

Eventually, I had wanted to see the other side of her- not the skilled fighter and eager learner she was when she was with the League, but the ambassador she had also come from Themyscira to serve as. I had heard one day that she would be speaking to a university assembly in Paris that afternoon, which seemed like a harmless enough event to slip in and observe.

And that was when it all began.

I stood in the back of the packed auditorium dressed as Clark Kent so as not to attract any attention and watched the Amazon known as Wonder Woman take the stage. The speech centered on activism and she had fittingly worn her Wonder Woman uniform, the armor plated bodice glittering beneath the stage lights every time she moved. Her speech was in flawless French, and though I caught a few words here and there, the language barrier was a good enough excuse for me to just watch her as she stood before the thousands of students and inspired them to a higher cause.

People often joked that she only looked as perfect as she did because she was sculpted from clay, but her face wasn't the only thing that would hold my gaze captive on a regular basis. Mostly it was her grace. Like me, she wasn't bound by the laws of gravity, which my have had something to do with it, but she carried herself with an unearthly poise. Her body was a wonder of itself, all its immense power contained within a sculpted shape, the same sort of muscles and sinews all humans shared but somehow put together in the most perfect way, a picture artists couldn't have imagined if they tried. Though I didn't understand most of what she was saying, the passion and clarity of her voice kept everyone's attention the entire time. The students were enrapt, cheering wildly when her speech was over, and only heard it grow as she acknowledged their praise with a modest smile.

Everyone in that room was enchanted by her. And I was no different.

Her visit had certainly not gone unnoticed by the French media, so I joined a quite substantial flock of reporters and photographers as she made her way off the campus, tirelessly greeting and speaking briefly with admiring students along the way. Any sensible celebrity would have had a car waiting to avoid mobs like this, but I had seen enough of her to know she would likely never be one to hold back from anyone who wanted to speak to her. Instead, she reached the street ahead of the trailing press members, turned once to smile and wave politely, and then rose quickly into the air and arced away into the sky, leaving the throng grounded and able to only snap a few final pictures as she flew away.

Of course, there was one reporter who _could_ follow her…

Instead of flying after her though I just watched through the buildings with X-ray vision to see where she was going. To my surprise, she descended again almost immediately into an empty alley a few streets away, twirled into an understated outfit of casual street clothes that seemingly materialized from thin air, and walked right back out onto the street. And while her striking looks still turned a few heads as she made her way down the avenue, she was suddenly just a regular, albeit stunning, young woman walking the streets of Paris.

It didn't take long of course for me to catch up with her.

I didn't really have a plan as I zipped onto the street behind her moving so fast that nobody would even see me. As I slowed to an abrupt walk to make a better approach though, the glasses I was wearing continued forward, carried by the inertia, and clattered onto the sidewalk just behind her. I saw her start to turn at the sound and thought fast, stumbling forward with my head ducked to keep her from seeing my face as I scooped the frames off the ground.

"_Escuzez-moi, mademoiselle_," I said in horrible French as I stood up, risking a glance at her face only after I had the glasses back on.

She was smiling though, a bemused look on her face. "You must be American- that accent's atrocious," she said in English as she looked me quickly up and down. "I'll have to give you some credit with catching up with me so quickly. I assume you're hoping for an interview?" she said as her eyes darted to the press badge I was still wearing.

_Too convenient._

"Clark Kent from the Daily Planet," I said quickly, tugging off the badge and offering her a look. "If you don't mind, miss, just a few minutes of your time?"

"As long as you're not going to call the mob to join you, I'm happy to speak with you," she said lightly, turning and beginning down the street again without waiting for me to move too. "It's a beautiful day and I was hoping to see more of the city before I have to leave tonight. You're welcome to join me."

I caught up with her quickly, hardly believing my luck. "Thank you, miss, I very much appreciate it," I said, reaching into my pocket for my digital recorder. Her hand suddenly stopped me, a gentle touch on my arm and caused me to turn, surprised, to find her gazing at me with an amused smile.

"You can have an interview any time, Superman," she said in a measured voice that was barely more than a whisper, deftly slipping the recorder out of my hand and dropping it back into my jacket pocket while my heart practically dropped into my stomach. "But we have exactly four hours and fourteen minutes until I believe we are both due at the Watchtower for a meeting. So for now, why don't we just enjoy Paris?" She turned and walked away again, and this time it took me a lot longer to follow her.

I was still trying to get my heart beating regularly again as I caught up to her.

"I'm sorry," I attempted as I fell instep beside her, worried that she was upset by my attempted deception. "I wasn't trying to be dishonest, I just hoped-How did you-" But she stopped, turned fully to face me, and silenced me with a dazzling smile.

"Mr. Kent, I would have to be deaf, blind, and very, very dumb. If you wanted to know me better, all you had to do was ask. Now come on, I'm hoping to make it into the Louvre before it closes." She hooked a hand into my jacket pocket then and tugged me down the street, and I could only follow, amazed.

"I saw you in the back of the auditorium," she confessed later that evening as we walked along the Seine, the infamous night lights of Paris glimmering on the water like buried stars. "You might look more bookish with those glasses, but they can't hide those eyes. And they certainly don't make you any shorter."

I actually managed a laugh. Once I had gotten my words going again, conversation had flowed easily between us for the better part of the day. It was her first time in France, she had explained on that initial walk to the Louvre, and she was determined to make the most of the limited time she had to spend here. She was far more talkative than I had realized, and now at the end of the day I felt like I had had the interview after all.

As we walked around the city collecting the sights, she told me her story- she told me about Themyscira and the women there, her mother the queen and the women who had raised her as sisters. She didn't bat an eye when I stupidly asked her who her father was, she only smiled and told me about her mother forming her from clay and blessing of the Olympian gods that gave her life and her array of abilities. She told me about the isolation of the Amazon women on Themyscira and the reason they all wore the cuffs on their arms, a story that helped me suddenly understand why she was always to carefully reserved around the all-male League and so dismissive of every flirtatious man I had seen even attempt to approach her.

Eventually she reached the part of the story where her people had decided to hold a competition to choose the Amazon ambassador to Man's World. She told me about their desire to share the ideals that had allowed them to live in peace for so long and their mission of righting the wrongs caused by the pitfalls of patriarchy. She was enjoying everything about her new experiences so far, she said, even on the days when she felt like she barely had time to breathe.

"If I hated what I was doing, I might allow people to call my life stressful…but I love every minute. I love the time I get to spend speaking to students, like today, and the other ways I get to travel and learn more about others while sharing about myself and my culture. I love getting to participate in the United Nations on behalf of my homeland. And of course, I always look forward to the days I'm with the rest of the Justice League. Everyone there is just so…fascinating."

It still startled me when she would refer to the League without even lowering her voice, but I had to keep reminding myself that she had no secret identity and therefore had no reason to edit herself no matter what she was doing. She had not been raised among the ordinary people of Earth, and therefore she had never felt any pressure to hide who she was-superhuman.

It was the same thing that had fascinated me from day one- she had no alter-ego, no common façade that she hid behind. When we were walking through the gardens of Versailles and encountered another UN ambassador who was also taking a private day to sightsee, she fell immediately into conversation with him while I hung back and marveled at the spectacle. Between the Watchtower, the UN, and the streets of Paris, nothing about her had changed except her clothes, but even then, she was never putting on a different guise. While the circumstances around her were different, she was the same metahuman I had been working alongside in the League, the same ambassador representing her nation, and the same woman trying to change the world. She was all three titles at once- a hero, an ambassador, and a princess, never hiding behind a cover, unapologetically herself every moment.

That was the first thing I loved about her.

Walking the streets of Paris with her had been nothing less than surreal. It was the first time I had ever seen her in an everyday setting like that- strolling without destination, taking in the sights, stopping to admire anything that caught her eye. Despite wearing plainclothes, her presence rarely went unnoticed no matter where she went. Something about her was magnetic; no one was immune. Children inexplicably raced to hug her legs anytime we stopped somewhere, and lesser men forgot their words or their feet when we passed them on the boulevard. When we stopped in a café for croissants and coffee late in the evening with only a few minutes before we both had to leave, I made sure to hand the wide-eyed teenage boy behind the counter exact change, as I guessed it would take him a long time to snap out of his trance.

"I am aware of it," she said quietly as we stepped back out into the darkening city, the lights of the city beginning to become the dominant light source and casting a hazy glow onto everything in sight. I looked at her, surprised, and saw her eyes flicker back into the café as she took a sip of her coffee. The boy was still blatantly ogling at her and was only startled into putting the money in the register when the female manager poked him sharply in the side. I knew what Diana was referring to, but she went on without prompting as we began strolling down the street again, the Seine running alongside us toward an unseen sea.

"It's everywhere I go. At first, I just assumed that men looked at all women in that manner. It was only after I spent more time watching everyone else that I finally started to understand the way men and women usually interact. There's still so much I don't understand though."

"What do you mean?" I asked carefully, not sure where she was going with that.

"I mean…_that, _for example," she said, nodding subtly towards a couple walking hand in hand on the other side of the street. "Or that." She was glancing towards a park bench where a girl perched on her beau's lap, her arms around his neck and his around her waist as he nuzzled at her neck.

"And I certainly don't understand this…" she murmured as we rounded a corner onto a bridge to cross to Ile de la Cite, and I remembered suddenly which bridge it was as we watched a young man and woman crouch together to clip a padlock on the protective grid of the bridge. They stood as one and together dropped the key into the Siene below, where it splashed into darkness. The two shared a long kiss, standing for a moment to gaze out over the water before turning and strolling away, hand in hand. It was only when the male of the couple shot us a quizzical look over his shoulder that I realized we had been staring too.

"It's a tradition," I said abruptly to break the silence as I turned quickly away. "There's an old story behind it, but couples come here to put a lock on the bridge together, then throw the key in the river. It symbolizes a promise of undying love."

"That's straightforward enough," she admitted as we reached the middle of the bridge, the perfect between, "It's the rest of it I don't really understand yet."

"Couples?"

"Love," she said simply, as she stopped on the sidewalk, her eyes panning down at the thousands of multicolored locks clipped on the bridge. "The whole business of it."

I had no idea what to say in response to that, and as she glanced at my face she seemed to understand why.

"Try to put yourself in my place, Clark," she said as she tossed her empty coffee cup and napkin into a trashcan, then moved to lean against the rail of the bridge, looking out over the water. "Try to imagine living your whole life in a place where all you know of the other sex is that they are untrustworthy, greedy, and generally the source of all evil in the world. Imagine that your native people's entire existence as immortal and isolated beings is predicated on this belief, and therefore your upbringing lays a foundation of this concept deep within you. Now imagine abruptly changing lives and suddenly living in close contact with the group that your people have spent centuries avoiding. Not only that- imagine discovering that not all women think as you do. Imagine my shock the first time I saw the way men touched women in public was never violent- it was tender and sincere. Try to imagine my confusion the first time I saw the trust between men and women in friendships, the intimacy shared by couples in relationships, and all the overwhelmingly positive qualities that the two sexes bring out in each other when they let their guard down, let each other in, and give each other everything they have. That entire process goes against _everything_ I've been taught. At first I just assumed the women here were the fools, leaving themselves open to men like that, where it would be so easy for them to be wounded. But from what I've seen…I don't know yet who makes the wiser decision- the one who isolates herself and never risks the deepest injury, or the one who leaves herself open to the deepest hurt and through that finds the deepest satisfaction? Which is the wiser choice?"

I could only stand there leaning on the rail beside her, utterly amazed as I listened to the wisdom and truth beneath her words. She had done it so well- helped me understand how she saw the world-and I was only more overcome by her than ever. The whole time she spoke, she had kept her eyes fixed straight ahead across the moving water, but now she stopped and turned to look at me, eyes expectant. I realized then that her last question had not been rhetorical.

"Which the wiser choice, Diana?" I repeated, and she nodded. "I think the wiser choice is the one you can live with and, even on the days when it's the worst, never once think you made the wrong decision."

She stood there for a long moment, studying me as the sky settled into the mottled blue-black of nightfall and pinprick stars became visible. The lights of Paris glittered in her eyes as a stray breeze stirred the curls on her shoulders, and I was struck in that moment by the sheer impossibility of her. Her very existence, her abilities, her body, her mindset, her heart…she seemed too incredible to be real. Too good to be true. I found myself wondering if I touched her if she would evaporate, disseminating into thin air like wisps of cloud. But after everything she had just said, I suddenly realized I would never be able to bring myself to touch her, for I never wanted to betray the fragile trust she was granting me. I now understood why she held herself carefully back from even those of us who she seemed perfectly at ease with. She had asked the question, and while I had given her my answer, she was going to wait and find out for herself what the answer really was.

Couples passed us on the bridge as we just stood, separate and silent over the water, and Paris seemed to only grow brighter as night settled over the city. Finally she straightened up and we started walking again, side by side towards the inevitable shore.

"I'm not sure what it is about you, Mr. Kent," she said, bumping her elbow gently against mine, layers of clothing between us but still in that moment proof to me that she was solid and real, "but I have the feeling I'm going to learn a lot from you." I could only smile, and when she smiled back, all of Paris could not have eclipsed the beauty of everything about her in that moment.

By the time we reached the shore, my heart was completely lost.


	3. Chapter 3

"You know, I just realized how lucky I am," Diana was saying as I tumbled back into the present moment. We were still lying on the floor of the training room, she was still overlapping me in two places, and my head still actively attempting to override every impulse of the rest of me.

"What are you talking about?" I replied ambiguously, drawing my leg out from beneath hers in an attempt to make this situation marginally more bearable. She unfortunately took that as her cue to sit up and also release my arm. I sat up too, and she turned to shoot me a smug smile.

"Well, for starters, how many people can even say that they've beat you in a fight? And here I can already say I've beat you several times-"

"Excuse me, I've _let_ you beat me-"

"That's bullshit and you know it," she cut in without changing her easy tone, and I laughed because she was the only person I'd ever heard with the ability to make even curse words sound musical."As I was saying though, not only can I say that I've beat you in a fight, but now I can say that I trained the most powerful meta on the planet. Talk about bragging rights."

She was still smiling to herself as she folded in her legs and rose gracefully to her feet, then turned to offer me a hand up.

"Keep perspective, Diana," I said as I took her hand and she pulled me easily to my feet. "Someone out there has bragging rights to training you, too."

"Several people, actually," she corrected me as she tugged the tie out of her hair and shook the braid out until her curls hung loose again, "But I've yet to do battle against a single opponent as powerful as you. Beating you one-on-one is still my biggest accomplishment."

"That's bullshit and you know it. You're far to successful at everything else that you do to let beating me be that important."

"I'll accept a compliment like that anytime, Kal," she said with a thump on my shoulder, conceding for today. She was still the only one who called me by that name.

And that was just the way I wanted it.

"Are you heading to New York now?" I asked as we made our way towards the door.

"For at least a little while- I have a few meetings in the morning. Then I'll be travelling for the Foundation for a couple of days. You?"

"Sunrise in Metropolis in seven hours and the Planet will be awake long before that- maybe I'll be able to sleep before then," I responded with a shrug.

"We don't have to keep meeting like this you know," she said quietly as we stepped into the hallway. "You've got enough going on as it is- you only have so many hours in a day-"

"I asked you, remember?" I reminded her, nudging her into the doorframe as we stepped through it together. In response, she shoved me into the wall once we were both in the hallway.

"Superman's no good to anyone if he can't stay awake," she reminded me, continuing down the hall without waiting for me to catch up.

"But Clark Kent's just a bad employee if he dozes off at his desk," I pointed out as I fell into step beside her again. "This is more than worth the time, Diana- I didn't realize how behind the curve I am. Superpowers can make for sloppy fighters, evidently."

"It's true. No matter how strong the steel, it's useless until beaten into a sword or a shield."

"Ancient proverb?" I asked with a raised eyebrow as we stepped onto the elevator and it carried us to the hub of the satellite.

"Sort of. It's what the women who trained me used to say." She didn't look at me, but I saw the trace of a smile flutter across her face.

"Keep practicing those stances as often as you think of it," she commissioned me as we stepped out of the elevator and prepared to part ways. "Try to be aware of which one would work best in each situation you find yourself in. Next week you've got a bigger undertaking ahead of you- learning to hide what you're thinking for a change."

And then with a parting smile, she was turned and was quickly gone, leaving me alone with those words.

It was one more of those things Diana would say that made me think she might not be entirely oblivious to the storm I was always attempting to tame within me whenever we were together. She delivered comments like that in such an offhand way, as though they were simple statements of truth, but I was always looking for some added hint that she knew my secret- a raised eyebrow, a meaningful glance, a smirk…

I hadn't slipped yet, but a small part of me felt that it was only a matter of time before my self-control wavered just long enough for me to cross the line and incidentally drive her away. And yet, for all the times I had come close, such as today-an occasional slip of my words, a passing remark that would go too far- she had never called any attention to it. Which meant either she didn't notice, didn't understand, or simply didn't care.

I didn't know which I would prefer to be true.

There were days that I debated coming clean with Diana, but they were few and far between. It had been a gradual process over the months that turned into years since that first encounter in Paris, but she had become too big of a part of my life- of me- to consider ever doing something that might drive her away. And unfortunately, that meant constantly feigning how much I cared about her. It had become second nature by now, keeping my face carefully blank when she would make those cryptic comments, schooling my limbs to not follow any impulsive actions when she was nearby… it might have been difficult if I didn't already have one secret identity. Keeping this secret from her was just like creating one more disguise that I put on only when she was around.

I had tried to let it go several times. I told myself that all it would take would be a conscious reorganization of thought so that it centered on something other than her- redirecting everything was the key. And perhaps if I could have convinced myself that there was no chance of her ever letting me in, of her ever holding me at less than arm's length, I might have been able to do just that. I was convinced though that we shared a special kind of bond, something I didn't share with anyone else in my life, and that said something about how much she cared. More than that, it was the tiny moments of intimacy, moments that were usually few and often far between but that nonetheless restored my belief the relationship was moving forward in some way, even if I didn't know where or how it would end.

Still, the pragmatic part of me said that it was a useless hope. In all the years we had shared, there were still two things I had never seen the Amazon princess do. One was hint at any romantic affection for me, or any other man for that matter.

The other was cry.

I thought of all this as I made my way from the training room towards the living quarters where my bed might offer a few hours of sleep before I had to head to back work in Metropolis. With any luck, Earth would stay quiet for a few hours. Of course, I should never have assumed…

"_Superman,"_ J'onn's voice suddenly filled my head, startling me so much that I froze mid-step. _"Come to the monitor womb right now. There's a situation on Earth that needs the Justice League."_


	4. Chapter 4

After that night in Paris, I felt it would have been too much to hope that I would get to spend any more time alone with Diana for quite awhile. One evening that same month though, I had had to slip out of work near the end of the day to handle a crisis in the midtown area, an unextraordinary turn of events involving an out-of-control automated crane and a few poorly-placed buildings and bystanders. Though no one was hurt and I resolved the situation quickly, I didn't feel like heading back to the office right away, so I took instead to the sky, planning to fly around for just a little while. The sun was just starting to sink, the sky fading to the faint gold that signaled the beginning of the transition from day to night. I was a few miles into the sky and watching the slow stretch of the skyscrapers' shadows when I heard her voice.

"You don't seem to need any help with your own city- I guess it's a small wonder you added responsibility for the entire planet on top of your usual responsibilities."

I turned in the air and there she was, hovering over the nearest cloud like it was her pedestal. It may as well have been. I smiled immediately, startled by how effective her mere presence was- I already felt lighter just seeing her.

"What are you doing here?" I asked in surprise as I took a few steps through the sky towards her, reminding myself that to assume she was there to see me would have been little less than conceited.

She only shrugged with a small smile as she moved too to meet me in the middle. We were close enough to touch if we had wanted, and a part of me itched to reach for her and embrace her in greeting, but I head myself still when she only folded her arms over her chest, smiled across the sky at me, and finally replied.

"Just curiosity, I suppose. You tracked me down in my natural habitat; I figured I should return the favor. Watching you has been very…enlightening."

Though I raised my eyebrows in a suggestion for her to elaborate, she only gave me that sly smile in response. The sparkle in her eyes was somewhere between knowing and mischievous, and I wondered if she was aware of more about me than she was suggesting, the first of many times I would wonder that. But then she went on, looking around us at the myriad of colors beginning to dance in the sky.

"I've never been to Metropolis. Can you recommend a good spot to watch the sunset? Anyway, after how much I talked in Paris, I think Superman owes me an interview now."

Whatever she knew or thought she knew, it didn't seem to matter to her. Therefore I decided it wouldn't matter to me.

That night was the beginning what we would publicly call a friendship. From then on, we would visit each other in our respective cities almost weekly, stopping by each others' apartments, accompanying each other on patrols, or just taking each other on tours around the country…but through it all, spending nearly every moment talking and sharing our lives with each other.

With little prompting on her part, I told her throughout those visits about the formation of the Justice League, about my life here in Metropolis, and eventually I told her about my past in Kansas and Krypton. I told her Clark's story and Superman's, and finally I explained to her the past of Jor-El and Lara and their son Kal-El. She listened attentively to every word, the same sincerity that defined her every action full in her eyes as I found myself describing the three different identities I carried at all times. Her forehead creased pensively as she listened until she finally asked the question that would change everything.

"Which do you think you are at your core?" she asked me at one point. "If all of your external circumstances faded away for a moment, which of those identities would you take no matter what you are dressed as?" That night we were sitting on the globe atop the Daily Planet building, the sleepy city quiet far below our dangling feet. I had never entertained that question before, and it took me a long while to form my answer.

"It's hard to say," I responded slowly, considering everything as I sat there in the sky with her, the world around us flickering lights above and beneath. "I mean, as we sit here, I'm obviously Superman because I'm wearing this suit that tells everyone how I'm going to act. And in some ways, Superman is exactly who I am. Superman can do the big things that Clark Kent could never do-show his powers openly, protect people without concealing his actions-"

"Why couldn't Clark Kent do those things?" she interrupted for perhaps the first time since we had become friends. Her face was an expression of genuine puzzlement. "It's not as though your powers only work when you wear a red and blue suit. So why couldn't Clark be the hero without changing himself into Superman?"

That answer at least was easy. "Because Clark Kent wasn't supposed to have powers. He was supposed to be a farmer's son from Smallville, Kansas, not a super-powered alien refugee from a dead planet. When they found me and adopted me, my parents' primary concern was always to protect me from being found by the wrong people. If I had started doing these big things openly as Clark rather than Superman, it would have undone all their efforts. And even though I know now who my biological parents are, Clark will always be Jonathan and Martha Kent's son, and I want them to be proud of what I do with the name they gave me."

"But Clark was always Kal-El, he just didn't know it yet," Diana attempted again.

"Yes, you're right," I granted, "And I suppose underneath the hero persona, Superman will always in truth just be Kal-El of Krypton, displaced alien and sole survivor of his race. When I put a shirt and glasses back on, people will call me Clark and expect different things of me, but inside I'll still know that Clark is not all that I really am. Beneath this earthly identity, I'm still Kal-El."

"But never all three men at once," she said slowly, a hint of a question in her tone.

"It's a strange thing Diana," I said, turning and meeting her eyes, "but sitting here with you may be the closest I've ever felt to being all three people at once. The closest I've ever felt to being whole."

The confession was out of my mouth before I had even decided to say it, but once I heard the words in my own ears I knew they were true. Somehow, in a matter of weeks, she had managed to learn more about me than any single person on the planet. And somehow, she had taken in everything collectively, the whole tremendous mess all at once, and had understood in a way that no one ever had before.

Her lips turned in a small smile at my words, and for a long moment she just held my gaze captive, the silence like a shield around her. Her mesmeric eyes were so entrancing with the city lights glimmering in them that I didn't even notice that she had moved her hand from her knee until I felt her fingers gently brush mine. The back of her hand trailed lightly over the back of mine, a gentle but intentional caress, and before I could even react she turned her hand and settled it next to mine on the rail, allowing our fingers to overlap but making it quietly clear as she looked out over the city again that this was all she intended to do. The two of us sat together in silence, above the city but beneath the stars, a part of neither place yet connected and content somewhere in the between.

It was such a small touch lasting only a brief moment before she curled her fingers almost imperceptibly around mine and then drew her hand back, but that moment was a thunderclap of clarity that showed me two things.

The first was that she was no more made of stone than I was made of steel- for all her poise and contrasting power, her hand against mine was soft and warm. It was a long-awaited confirmation that she was in fact real and not an impossible construction of my mind.

Perhaps more importantly though, that small gesture showed that she wasn't afraid-that she trusted me enough to not take advantage of that moment. She had taken a small step towards me, had erased the line between us and redrawn it closer to herself. And if all I had earned so far was all she was willing to give, I knew I could be content with that.

However small that night would seem compared to all the other nights we would eventually share and memories we would make, I would forever see that moment as a turning point between us. Not just because she had reached out to me with a first, barrier-breaking touch that would come to define our relationship, but also because of the other change that set her apart from anyone else in my life.

After that night, she only called me Kal.


	5. Chapter 5

"I thought the people of this country overthrew the dictator last year. Why is there a war now?"

I had been a little surprised when I had entered the monitor room and seen Green Lantern, the Flash, and Diana also assembled with J'onn. Perhaps the line-up was not too out of the ordinary, but to be all called in for assistance with a local conflict was just a little strange. Normally, the Justice League's assistance was required only when metas, masterminds, or interplanetary attacks were involved. And yet, here we were in the Watchtower being briefed on the recent outbreak of a civil war between rebel groups within one of the world's poorer developing countries.

"There's a war now," J'onn was answering Green Lantern as he worked the monitor room's controls, "because the only thing worse than a repressive dictator is a powerless elected leader. The tyrant may be gone, but the government was in absolute shambles after the revolution and still hasn't been restructured enough to be effective. Outside criminals see this as an opportunity to capitalize on corruption, so they start supplying small rebel factions. Inevitably, there's conflict between groups and eventually that becomes open rivalry as each group's membership grows and turns into an army once it has the right supplies. Without much of a national military organization and with the country's law enforcement still as corrupt as they come, there's nothing to prevent open conflict between the groups once they get mad enough. You can probably guess the rest…"

He hit a few buttons on the keyboard so that a satellite feed of the nation filled all the screens of the room. If the satellite was our only eye on the scene, it meant that news crews had not arrived yet…which hopefully meant J'onn had noticed the situation almost as soon as it started.

"Fantastic. I assume that's why we've been called in?" John muttered, his jaw tight as he took in the sweeping shot of devastation.

"Indeed. It's hard to say if this was a planned attack or just a surprise encounter that started as a skirmish and got out of hand extremely quickly. Both these groups are well supplied with black market weapons, so the damage is going to be severe wherever the fighting is. Unfortunately, it looked like it started near one of the local villages."

The satellite zoomed in on a small section of the scans where smoke obscured most of the ground, but it was clear that many of the buildings had been reduced to rubble and ruin, and several fires were burning. Rocket launchers in untrained hands, most likely.

"Are there rescue teams on the way yet?" Diana asked, her eyes never leaving the monitors.

"I've already called in a few more members who are planetside to do damage control and start aiding with the rescue and relief efforts there," J'onn went on, "Local rescue is still assembling in the bigger cities, and it's at least an hour's drive from there. Until the local assistance can get to those towns…we're all these people have."

He zoomed the satellite in closer on the current area of conflict. Obstructive haze covered most of the land. "There's already been considerable damage to the surrounding land. Superman, I'm tasking you with putting out any fires you can find as quickly as possible before you help with putting down the conflict. The region's had considerable drought these past few years and it won't take much for even a small fire to get out of control. Flash, you and Wonder Woman will head to the northern rebel group; John, you and Superman to the south. You know the necessary method- destroy weapons and immobilize the leaders from the top down. With groups like this, there may not be a single head to the dragon, so try to capture anyone you see who looks like they're giving orders. The regional forces have already been called in, but they can only move so fast. Let's do our best to have the actual fighting stopped by the time they get there so all they have to do is take the soldiers into custody. Enough lives have been lost already."

As always, the Martian managed to end the briefing with words that reminded us of the urgency.

"The three of you, to the transporters. Superman, we'll meet you there."

The silence broke in a flurry of solemn but swift action as everyone moved at once. Diana was the last to move, standing for a brief moment longer with her eyes still locked intently on the satellite feeds, taking in the images with an expressionless face, when she wasn't wearing the etch of bewilderment. I knew that look and what it meant, but it was the absence of emotion on her face that told me she was trying desperately to ignore something that was scraping at her from the inside. Something I knew better than to ask about.

As I passed behind her on my way to the airlock, my hand drifted to brush against hers- but I pulled back so quickly that the touch was barely more than two structures acknowledging the other's existence. I knew better than to expect her to respond. Reaching for her to offer silent reassurance was automatic. Staying my hand a second too late was the conscious decision.

She didn't acknowledge my touch, though it seemed to stir her from her trance with the satellite feeds. In one breath she drew herself up and pulled her shoulders back, the posture of a warrior princess that said she meant business, then she turned and made for the transporter pods with the rest of moving members. She didn't look at me as the brushed past. But as I watched her climb into the transporter tube and turn around, I knew what I would see in her eyes as she finally allowed her gaze to land on me.

A faint shadow was flickering in the backstage of her expression, feinting in and out of her expression even though she was actively trying to hide it. Every part of me wanted to clasp her hand and mutter reassurances, but even if she had permitted that, it might have been as effective as telling the night to be a little brighter. Instead, I could only watch as she closed her eyes and disappeared.

That moment should have been my warning of what was to come.


	6. Chapter 6

That day was not the first time I had seen the phantom shadow in Diana's eyes.

It didn't appear often, or rather, she didn't let me see it often. Occasionally though I would notice it, lurking just behind the attentiveness in her gaze, dimming the light that seemed to radiate in her every action. Usually, it would appear during a mission where we turned up something exceptionally awful- an enslaved people group or a history of injustice to women or children. Even then, she never faltered in her work, never hesitated in her duty, but I would see that darkness in her face the whole time. Any efforts to talk to her about it ended in the same way- she would deflect, distract, or divert my efforts and attention. And, unfortunately, I always allowed it.

Only later would I understand what a mistake that was.

The first time I saw the shade in her eyes was not long after we had become close friends. I had come by her apartment one night with a file of headlines on China that I had compiled for her using my journalist resources. She was meeting with the Chinese ambassador the next day and had mentioned a need to "brush up" on her Asian history and the nation's current events. I realized when I had walked into her living room though that "brushing up" meant getting through a pile of texts taller than her coffee table. She went through my comparatively light compilation of news stories from the last thirty years in a matter of minutes, asking a few questions and letting me expand on the topics, but soon enough she had to dive back into the books. With no pressing reason to leave, I stayed for a while longer on the sofa next to her and researched on my laptop for my latest story. The confortable silence was broken only by snippets of conversation when she was changing books, but the depth of her brief comments kept surprising me.

"When you hold up history next to itself, it's a little sad to see that nothing really changes over time. There's always conflict in one way or another. Peace seems to be only prologue to the next conflict rather than a resolution of the preceding war. All that really changes is the weapons and methods. They become more advanced. Or just more subtle."

She trailed off as she looked back down at the book in her hands and turned the pages at a speed so rapid it was hard to believe she was not only reading but also retaining every word on every page. I waited silently on the couch next to her, pausing in my own reading to watch, entranced by the flurry of paper and the grace of even her fingers. She was about halfway through the pile of books at that point, several Chinese history books piled at her feet next to the file of modern China's more infamous events. Finally she reached the last page of that text and looked up again as she added the book to the heap on the floor and picked her thought up right where she left off.

"When you really look at the big picture, and I mean all of history regardless of place, the memoir of the human race is just one epic poem of competition between sub-groups of the same species, each vying for control of a fraction of the planet. And in that competition, peoples' rights are violated, lives are lost, and those hurt just respond with more hate for their brothers and sisters for what was done in the past." She reached for another book, but this time she didn't open it, only held it across her lap like a leatherbound shield. "The problem is so vast and so pervasive that sometimes it feels like there's nothing I can do. For every one problem we tackle, there's still so much to be done…"

"Diana," I immediately reminded her as I closed my laptop and set it aside, "Your foundation has already done so much and reached so many people in the short time you've been here. I had no idea that any organization, campaign, foundation, anything could be so efficient and its effects so immediate before you came along."

This was certainly true. In only a few months, her foundation had established a diverse arsenal of programs in some of the most desperately-needed areas of America and the world. Diana of course couldn't be at every outreach in every place, but she was an active head of the organization and never stayed in her office. It seemed like every time I turned around she was in a different country with a different people group, personally checking in on everyone's progress. And progress had certainly been made on many fronts. All thanks to her and the change she had catalyzed.

"But there is still so much to do. So many wrongs to which I haven't brought enough attention to inspire action, so many conflicts we haven't been able to prevent, so many lives we didn't save because no one acted in time…" She wasn't looking at me as she spoke, just staring down at the cover of the book, which featured a map of the world. Her fingers slowly traced the outline of the continents, as if she could actually see the billions of people within those lines and all the ways they were still hurting each other.

"Diana," I said softly, and when she didn't look up I reached out and gently touched her hand, laying my fingers over hers just as she had done with me. She looked up at me then, and for the first time I saw behind her eyes a shadow of doubt and sadness dimming the light within her.

"We can't be everywhere at once. Even if the entire League were on duty everyday all the time, we wouldn't be able to prevent every crime, every injury, or every hurt these people inflict on each other. And as much as we all wish we could, we can't save every life. At some point, all of us who save lives have to accept that there will be lives we can't save, times that we will fall short of the world's expectations of us, and many days that we'll fall short of our expectations of ourselves. The responsibility for the entire human race is too much for any one hero to assume-"

"But you do," she said suddenly, pulling her hand slowly out from beneath mine, my worry that she would see any touch as a threat clearly justified. "You put the greatest burden on yourself," she went on, crossing her arms over the book but not completely turning away from me, steeling me with a gaze I hadn't seen before. "I've seen you on the days when you feel like you've failed. And those days happen more open then you probably wish they did. How do you go on year after year and not carry that with you?"

Her eyes dug into mine, reaching for everything beneath, and I spoke as I always did with her- truth flowing without thought.

"You do carry it with you- every life you didn't save, every wrong you should have prevented-the lessons you learn from every failure are carved the most deeply into your heart. The only way we can keep going, keep reaching for the ideals we represent, is if we don't lose faith in the future. That's how I go on. I have to keep believing in tomorrow."

She held my eyes hostage as I said those words and in the long silence that followed them. Her concentrated gaze gradually softened but did not relent, and when she finally looked away with her brow furrowed I thought perhaps she just didn't understand what I was trying to say. But then she looked at me again with a small smile, the shadow in her eyes receding but not entirely disappearing, and there was a message there. She didn't like it, but she understood. Like everything else she had seen so far, she had taken it in, distilled everything down to the barest truth, and was somehow unafraid to go forward.

"I hope my Mandarin is good enough tomorrow to impress the ambassador," she said lightly as she finally opened the book on her lap and found chapter one. "If it goes as well as I want it to, the Foundation could be able to set up a base in Xian by next year."

It was a deflection, a diversion, and an obvious one, but I let it go. She'd made it clear enough how far I could go and where she drew the line. And in this case, I'd blatantly stepped over it and discovered only a minefield on the other side.

She was warning me to stop if I knew what was good for me.

So I stopped, didn't press her, let her push away the thoughts she didn't want to feel that day. I had no idea though what letting it go the first time would eventually lead to, but I should have seen the signs. She was only trying to protect herself from something she was determined to avoid, but in that mindset she was setting herself up for disaster. When a person protects herself with a minefield, there's no guarantee of who will be the one to detonate it. It could be an enemy, or it could just as easily be a well-intentioned friend…

Or could be the one who buried the mines.


	7. Chapter 7

Somewhat predictably, the actual firefight between the two groups did not last very long after the Justice League arrived.

The rebel group that Green Lantern and I had been sent to scattered almost immediately when the Justice League materialized amidst the clash, but of course we didn't let any of them get very far. By the time the regional armed forces arrived on the scene, John had dozens of captured soldiers in green chains, and a pile of hot, twisted metal was all that remained of their guns and rocket launchers. After seeing all the prisoners safely transferred to criminal custody, J'onn's telepathic link informed us that the other side had been subdued as well so we should all converge on the local village that had been in the line of fire and start helping with the relief work until more help arrived.

It was a painful sight that met my eyes as we made our way back into town. The firefight seemed to have broken out in the middle of a street and moved like a plague through the small community as the two groups scuffled their way towards the open countryside. Rocket launchers in untrained hands had toppled several of the more sizable buildings, and the fires the followed had scorched nearly all traces of green. The air was thick with dust, smoke, and panic as the survivors rushed through the ruins. Those who had the means and all their family members were still trying to get out of the area, but most people were still trying to track down all the members of their families.

Regrettably, I knew that many of those missing were now part of the body count.

Some civilians had been caught in the line of fire when the actual conflagration began, but many more had been caught beneath collapsing buildings as the firefight escalated. In this area, there was nowhere to run, and the innocent had paid the most for that. John and I set to work immediately clearing the buildings of any survivors, and when the emergency medical teams began arriving at last, I helped them quickly assemble their medical tents to begin treating the injured. Rescue teams began arriving a short while later, but by then all that remained to pull from buildings were casualties.

Another medical caravan pulled up and ejected dozens of doctors, EMTs, and nurses into the entropic center of the rescue operations. Most went straight to the medical tents, but one young medic caught sight of me and marched directly over.

"I don't know if it was you," she said, planting her feet defensively and peering up through the two feet of height difference between us, "but when you're moving debris, could you metas pay attention to where you're throwing things around? Our caravan was dodging flying sections of wall for the last two miles into town."

Even as she spoke, another crash shuddered in the distance, and we both looked towards the noise.

"Aha. Guess it wasn't you then," she muttered, looking a little abashed.

I looked with X-ray vision through all that blocked my view and saw the single-minded source of the accidental missiles.

"I'll take care of it," I told the nurse, and rose into the air.

Diana didn't look at me as I landed near her, but she did turn as I caught the next section of wall that she threw before it crashed into a smoldering tree.

"Are you even looking before you throw?" I asked her pointedly. "You nearly took out a medical caravan a minute ago."

She said nothing in reply, gave no acknowledgement that she had even heard me as she turned back to the ruined building and reached for another section of wall. She was covered from head to toe in dust, grime, and dirt, but I sensed the adrenaline pulsing frantically through her, animating her otherwise deathly appearance. Flash had muttered a quick report that the firefight on their side hadn't lasted long either, but this was the first time I had seen Diana since leaving the tower. I knew that avoidance of my gaze meant she was not interested in talking, so I could only watch in silence as she pushed aside a final layer of rubble and unearthed the body of a young woman. She bent and checked for a pulse, then lifted the girl in her arms and moved to lay her at the side of the road. Only then did I notice the dozens of other bodies already lined up there. The rescue teams hadn't made it to this area yet…she'd done all this herself…

"Diana, take a break," I said, setting the section of wall that I still held aside as she returned to the collapsed building. "You've done enough for now." She ignored me though, and I reached to touch her arm, guide her away…

That was when I suddenly saw the blood drenching her side beneath the layer dust and the two wounds that were its source.

"Diana," I breathed disbelievingly, "did you get _shot_?" _It was impossible, it had to be something else…but I knew bullet wounds when I saw them._

She didn't even acknowledge my question though and I reached out again and touched her arm. _Her skin was cold._

"Diana, come away now, you need medical attention…" My hand wrapped around her forearm and I tried to pull her gently away...

I didn't even see the blow coming.

Her fist cracked across my face hard enough to snap my head to the side, a blinding wave of pain stealing my vision for half a second. My hand released her arm so that I could catch myself before I fell, collapsing to a knee in the gravel. My ears might have been ringing, but I heard the high sing of metal and guessed she had caught me with one of her bracers as part of the punch. As my vision cleared and I opened my eyes to see the ground before me, I saw a splash of blood over the rubble. It was only when I pressed a hand against my pounding forehead, that I realized that it was mine.

"_Don't," _a low voice of cold steel said over me, the first word she had uttered since I found her. I looked up and saw her staring me down from her position on a mountain made of ruin, eyes fixed on me in an attempt at a threatening glare. Her face was a thin mask of anger but a gate had dropped behind her eyes, concealing everything behind them and leaving her looking empty. Barely an embodiment of the phantom shade that had fought so hard for control before.

She gave me a final warning with her eyes and voice."_Don't do this._"

In the fleeting second where she turned back to the rubble and I made my choice, I had time to realize that this was the understood rule, the line I'd agreed to never cross, the trust I had sworn I would never betray. To overstep it now might mean breaking everything between us irreparably…

But none of that would matter if she was dead, and that made the decision much easier.

My hands closed around her arms from behind with undiluted force and I pulled her back, up into the sky and away from the scene of destruction that only expanded around us as we rose. She twisted and lashed out at me as I pulled her higher, but even as she shouted curses I could hear the brokenness behind her voice.

Fresh blood began running from the wound in her side as she fought against me and I couldn't let go long enough press my hand against it to staunch the flow-I was running out of options to get her to let someone help her…

Then J'onn was suddenly there in the sky with us, doing what had to be done without waiting to be asked.

"Rest, Diana," the Martian commanded gently, laying a long green hand across her forehead and pushing her into a deep sleep. She collapsed within my grip almost instantly, strings cut and voice silenced. Afraid to waste even a second, I lifted her in my arms and pressed my hand against her wounds to keep her from losing more blood, nodded silent thanks to J'onn, then flew off to find help.


	8. Chapter 8

There had only been one other time, a time not so long ago, that I thought Diana might have been on the verge of some sort of breakdown like the one I has just witnessed. It had been in a very different place though- a place saturated with water rather than scorched by fire.

The League had been working all day with the evacuation efforts of the coastal cities as a Category Five hurricane churned its way inland from the Gulf of Mexico. Many of the poorer or elderly communities had little or no means of transportation to get away from the impending assault of nature, which was where the superhuman community came in. Using both League transporters and our own powers of flight, many of us had spent the entire day moving groups of people to safety as suggestive rain began to fall. Afterwards, as the thunderheads rolled in and the storm began in earnest, several of us were sent to make sure the cities were clear of any one not sufficiently prepared for the impending disaster.

That was when I noticed Diana had turned her communiqué off.

The storm was raging full force by the time I found her at a rocky place where land became sea. She was perched on an outcrop not too high above the surf, and the sea was churning so fiercely that the waves crashing against the shore were constantly splashing over her. The hurricane winds turned every raindrop into a bullet, and the wind roared loud enough that even the waves barely competed in the cacophony. And yet there she sat, legs drawn up to her chest and arms folded over her knees, an unshakeable rock staring down the storm.

She didn't turn as I landed near her, but I saw her close her eyes intentionally and knew she knew I was there.

"There are probably better places to take a breather," I said to break the non-silence, raising my voice a little to make sure she heard me over the squall.

"Don't mock me," she said tonelessly as she lowered her head to hide her face in her arms. Of course she didn't want to talk, but it was my responsibility to get her to.

"You know I have to ask why you're hiding out here."

"Actually, Kal, you don't." She didn't raise her head as she answered, but the fold of her body only amplified her voice. She was drenched to the bone, her hair plastered against her skin and rivulets of water tumbling down the arc of her spine to the stone on which she sat, equally immovable. I wondered to myself how long she had been out here, how long she'd been sitting here challenging the sea.

"I don't suppose I could persuade you to go somewhere warmer and dryer?" I said, moving closer until I stood near enough to lift her to her feet if she would let me.

"You know me better than that," her voice echoed back, hollow and haunting.

I said nothing in reply as I sat down next to her, a handbreadth between us but no more. The next wave crashed over both of us together, drenching me with a salty deluge that invaded my nose and mouth as well. I tipped my face up into the rain and let the fresh water wash away the brine, closing my eyes against the stinging spray. I could barely feel normal rain, but this was an entity all its own- an onslaught of tiny impacts that made an unsteady cadence against my body as they showered down. It was almost uncomfortable but also oddly refreshing- a cleansing assault in nature's purest form.

"I came here because there's too much to take in," she finally said down into her arms, and as I opened my eyes and turned toward her she raised her head and spoke out over the sea. "So many sounds, tastes, smells, and sensations on my skin, it's too much to process at the same time. I can only feel so many things at once- something has to get displaced."

The understanding between us dictated that I could not ask what she was so determined to displace. But she told me anyway.

"I found eighteen brothels when I was clearing out the inner city area. Eighteen. Ten of them had girls in them who weren't even twelve years old."

The cold fact hung suspended in the air for the span of a heartbeat before she went on.

"I found a house full of kids whose mother skipped town weeks ago and left them to fend for themselves. They hadn't eaten in days. I found a young woman who'd been locked in a basement for weeks. She'd been abused ways I'd never even heard of. And every time I thought I couldn't find something more awful, the next door I broke down proved me wrong."

I knew if she had been willing to look at me, I would have seen the shadow dancing shamelessly in her eyes, even if the gate had been dropped over her expression. But of course she wasn't going to let me see that. It was a game we played, and I was her enabler as much as her aid.

"I got everyone to safety before the storm hit, and the people who need to be in police custody have been dealt with, but I don't know what will be next for those girls, those kids... What's more, for every one place like those that I found today, I bet there are ten more that I missed. It might be the same in every city we didn't search today. I just don't understand how people can do this to each other. I just don't _understand_…"

She trailed off and the waves crashed harder, kicking up another drenching wall of water to break over us. Her only response was to push her hair out of her face, sigh out the invasive saltwater, and rest her forehead on her hand. She was a stunning embodiment of composure despite her external circumstances, of enduring forbearance and quiet fortitude. All these years later, and still each day she managed to amaze me more.

The same things that had enchanted me from day one still had not lost their effect on me, yet these striking examples of her extraordinary willpower were equally beguiling. As fascinating as it was though, it was also the source of the scrim that stayed between us despite my best attempts to reveal her. Somehow, with all that I had learned of her, all that I had been privileged enough to glimpse, I still sensed there was a small part of herself that she was constantly holding back, keeping locked subtly away where I wouldn't think to look. Time had not relieved my captivation by her or my addiction to her and the impossible everything that she had become for me. She brought out the better side of me and tempered the sharper edges, she saw my worst on a regular basis yet never stopped encouraging and challenging me in ways no one else could. She was a polestar around which my thoughts continuously spun, my barometer, the unfazed and long-suffering bearer of all my shortcomings.

Yet, by some cruel discrimination, I could not be that for her.

She wouldn't let me.

Even here, even when it was so evident that that something was tearing at her from the inside to the point that she would do _anything_ to not think about it…even now, she would not allow herself to lower her sword and expose her heart. She would still trust me only so far. Her constant defense, her regal reserve that I had never seen falter even when the storm raged the hardest, literally and figuratively…she held that impermeable shield around her even here, even now.

Her arms unexpectedly unfolded and she nudged me with an elbow, a subtle push in the right direction-away from her.

"You don't have to sit through this storm with me," she whispered, still not moving her eyes from the sea.

There were a thousand things I wanted to say to that, but only one that I allowed myself.

"Yes, I do."

She turned then to face me at last, those mesmeric eyes darkened with shadows as I felt her soul reach within me and test truth. With the water from the sea and sky streaming down her face, I might have thought she was weeping if I didn't believe that she would never allow herself to do that in front of me. This time, she didn't mask the darkness with a smile. She was past that point. And somehow I felt only relief to see that.

She looked towards the sea again, and I thought she might be about to stand, fly away, and forcibly sever the fragile connection of the moment. Instead though, she surprised me by tilting her body towards mine until her shoulder bumped my arm and her head rested against my shoulder. A heavy sigh escaped her, exhaustion and sadness haunting the insubstantial sound that was immediately swallowed by the storm. Lightning cracked directly overhead, the instantaneous thunderclap a warning to flee but her weight against me an entreaty to stay. I slipped my arm around her and pressed my palm to the skin of her back, not presuming to hold her closer but simply assuring myself that even under the relentless water she was still warm, still alive.

The storm was not breaking her, only breaking over her.

She allowed that touch, an unassuming gesture that made no promises or suggestions, a touch of which she was as tolerant as she was trusting. It didn't matter to me. She was allowing me to be sure of her.

Waves leapt and clawed at the shore and the rain beat down mercilessly as we sat without speaking, wordlessly watching the tempest blow in from the infinite ocean. Water from above and below washed over us again and again until I forgot what dry felt like and the mechanic storm roared ever louder, demanding to be heard. We sat in the non-silence watching the perpetual collision of sea against land, one entity desperately reaching for the other only to be met each time with indifference and sent repeatedly away. As always, we were caught together somewhere between the two.

Heedless, the storm raged.


	9. Chapter 9

That storm was a very different time and place though. Back then, it had ended in a stalemate. Today, I had probably broken that trust completely with what I had just done.

Though the field medics were visibly startled as I landed among the medical tents with and unconscious Wonder Woman in my arms and shouted for a doctor, they leapt into action as soon as I laid her on a gurney and uncovered the wounds. There was one bullet hole in her shoulder and another inches from her navel, both bleeding freely again-and the sight was enough to take my words away. I didn't want to leave her side as they whisked her away into a surgical tent, but J'onn was there again, always aware of when he was needed.

"Clean yourself up, Superman," he muttered as he appeared next to me, pressing a damp cloth into my bloody hands.

_I hadn't even thought..._

Methodically, I scrubbed at my stained skin, wondering if the crimson was mine or hers. When I looked up and through the tent walls, I saw the surgeons cutting away her blood-soaked uniform, every inch of skin revealed disturbingly pale. _She had to have been bleeding for a long time..._

"You've done all you can for her right now," J'onn said quietly, his words always showing that he knew more than I thought. "There are plenty of people out there who still need your help. Go be Superman for awhile."

I didn't see Diana again for hours as the League continued working with the rescue and recovery efforts. I kept my ear constantly tuned to the exchanges inside the surgical tent though.

"_I think that's the last of the shrapnel."_

"_Let's close up the wound then then-"_

"_Sir, the lesions have been closing up on their own as fast as we've been cleaning them out- we would probably do more harm than good by putting in stitches."_

"_If she loses another _ounce_ of blood she isn't going to wake up at all, and the last thing I'm going to attempt is a blood transfusion on a meta."_

"_Doctor, look- scar tissue has already formed. The wound is closed."_

"_Well, I'll be damned… Her body will still need to replace an impressive amount of blood though. With her blood pressure this low, she shouldn't even have been able to walk. She's probably been running on adrenaline all day. Assign someone to watch her and make sure she doesn't even _move_ until her vitals are stabilized again. That might still take awhile."_

It did. Several hours, in fact. It was nearly twenty-four hours after the Justice League had arrived in the warzone that I heard the doctors within the tent say that Wonder Woman's vitals had stabilized and she was cleared to be transported. Only a few minutes later the Martian Manhunter called me to take her to the Watchtower.

I didn't bother protesting or insisting that I stay to keep helping with the rescue efforts. If there was anyone I had never fooled about how much I cared, it was J'onn.

"They need the space for more injured, but …it also would probably be better if she didn't wake up here," he said as we stood in the cockpit of a JL transporter ship while the medics rolled her gurney in and secured it to the bay. J'onn handed me her lasso, tiara, and the bloody remains of her uniform, and I realized this was the first time I had seen any of those items disconnected from Diana's person. She had instead been re-dressed in some clothes another League member had brought from the Tower for her.

"Stay with her," J'onn murmured softly as he put a hand on my shoulder, and I lifted my gaze to meet his red eyes. "Explain everything to her when she wakes up. And see if you can get an explanation out of her too." He gave me a meaningful look, and I nodded silently as he set the controls on autopilot for the Tower and stepped out to remain at the warzone.

She didn't wake up at all on the quick flight to the satellite, nor when we docked, not even when I lifted her from the gurney and carried her through the cold halls to her room. Holding her in my arms was probably the longest continuous contact between the two of us, yet all I could think about was how chillingly lifeless she felt slumped against me. This wasn't the woman I knew- it was only a shell.

Once I had laid her out on her bed and covered her with a blanket, I went to her desk to pull the chair to her bedside. It was then that I caught my ghosted reflection in the bay window and saw that the cut on my head had already healed into a faint scar right under my eyebrow. _After all these years, she finally left a _visible_ mark... _I could only sigh as I sat down in the chair next to her sleeping form.

_She might never trust me again after what I did today,_ I thought to myself, hesitating only a moment before reaching out and lifting her cold hand in mine. She didn't even stir as I traced my thumb gently over the back of her hand, feeling the architecture of the bones that only hours ago had cracked across my face in a startling display of strength. Now though, this was something else I had never seen-our hands embracing each other rather than one reaching while the other remained turned carefully away.

_She was shot, _I repeated the fact to myself, trying to force it to become more real to me_. I've _never_ seen her miss a block with those bracelets-she's faster and better-trained than practically everyone else in the League-how could a run-of-the-mill rural soldier have ever overpowered her?_

The medics had covered her new scars with gauze and wrapped her in linen bandages to hold everything in place. Beneath the gown she'd been re-dressed in, her entire abdomen was shrouded in white and one exposed shoulder was wrapped from neck to armpit.

_How could she have not sought help immediately if her injuries were this deep? _

I had never seen her behave so irrationally or act so dangerously- she couldn't have been thinking clearly. She must have been focused on something inside. Something terrible had happened out there-something awful that drove her to nearly kill herself in her efforts to ignore it…

And then suddenly I remembered the one other thing I had never seen Diana do.

_If that's what happened_…I felt my heart twisting as I turned and looked at her face again, the normally expressive canvas lifeless and unmoving.

She would probably only hate me more if I called her out on it. But if I'd already burned the bridge between us, I could only help her by confronting her about it when she woke up. Maybe, by some miracle, she would listen.

Pulling her hand closer and encasing it completely in mine, I rested my head on my other hand and closed my eyes. I let everything but the beating of her heart fade away- the pulse in her fingers and the echo of its rhythm in my ears. Even if this was the most lifeless and broken I'd ever seen her, her heart was beating, and that meant there was some hope, even if it was only in tomorrow.

_I was standing on the edge of a cliff, a storm-tossed black sea and boiling gray sky spread before me uninterrupted to the horizon. Peals of thunder rumbled across the water, and jagged fingers of lightening occasionally leapt down to join sea and sky. Far below me, waves crashed fiercely against the cliff walls, kicking spray up so high that the wind could carry it all the way up and fling the tiny droplets against my skin. It was a violent scene, but I felt no fear as I stood there, inches from tumbling into the chaos below me. Out there, right in the middle of all that uncertainty, was both the journey and the destination. I had traversed the pains and beauties of that vast unknown time and again and hadn't tired of it yet. And now it was waiting for me…but this time, I was here for her._

_I turned around and there she was, rooted to the spot though her eyes were fixed on the ocean. She wanted to be out there, she knew it, but as always she was the only thing holding herself back. I held my hand out to her, in my eyes a silent promise that we would be in it together. Her eyes met mine with only uncertainty though, and she made no motion towards me. _

It wasn't that she didn't want to,_ I realized, _but that she was still scared of what she might discover. She still wasn't sure if the reward was worth the risk.

_I let my hand fall to my side, offering her a sad smile. "It isn't like you to be afraid, Diana," I said quietly, then turned to face the edge._

_It had never been about waiting for her. I'd fallen a long time ago. This time, I was only here to show her it could be done. I closed my eyes, breathing the salty air…and fell._

_There's fear in falling when flight is impossible, but even now I felt only exhilaration as I plummeted down to the sea. I cut into the water like a knife but surfaced quickly, and as I gasped the wild air and shook my hair out of my eyes, I looked up and saw her leaning over the edge, her face stunned._

_She didn't think it was possible to survive that…_

"_The first step is the scariest, Diana," I called up to her as the waves crashed around me, "But it's also the most important one." I reached up to her and offered my only plea. "Jump."_

_I saw her turn away and speak to someone behind her, her face confused as she weighed everything. _

"_Diana," I called again, the only word I had left._

_Then suddenly she was tumbling backwards over the edge as though pushed- it wasn't her choice but she was falling all the same, supine to the sky until she turned and I saw the panic in her eyes as she plunged towards me._

_I reached out as though to catch her but the waves yanked me back at the last second, and she crashed into the water alone, disappearing into its darkness. Without a second thought, I sucked in a breath and dove after her._

_She was deep into the sea and still sinking, her limbs floating lifelessly and her eyes closed. A stream of bubbles fizzled from her mouth, and as my reaching hand finally closed around her arm she did not respond as I yanked her towards me._

"_Diana!" I shouted through the wall of water as I kicked hard and sent us both shooting towards the distant surface, a faint halo of light our only beacon. I had to get her to the surface- she needed to remember how to breathe…_

_We broke the surface into blinding light and everything shattered to pieces._


	10. Chapter 10

My heart was still racing as my eyes snapped open and I saw an empty bed before me.

For a half-heartbeat, I thought Diana had left, somehow slipping away without waking me. But as the fog cleared quickly from my mind and I lifted my head, I realized she hadn't made it very far.

She was seated at the foot of her bed, hunched over with her elbows against her knees and her fingers tangled in the curtain of hair hiding her face. Every muscle in her exposed back seemed stretched taut, a coil straining against its hub. And I could see even from where I sat that she was trembling.

I rose to my feet automatically, forgetting my fears for a moment as I slipped to her side and crouched at her feet. My immediate concern for the physical got the first question. "Diana, are you in pain? Can I get you something for your wounds?"

I had a feeling she wouldn't speak, and I was right-she managed to shake her head though in silent deferral. I desperately wanted to push aside the curtain of hair and see her face, but I steered my hand instead to ghost over her arm. Her flesh still felt cold. And beneath her skin, I felt tremors fluttering through her muscles, echoes of whatever storm it was that raged within her. Whatever it was that she didn't want me to see.

_Still fighting, even now._

She said nothing, still didn't lift her eyes, and I knew she wanted me to leave.

_Please don't, _everything about her said. _This far, and no closer._

But I couldn't leave her like this, not now. I needed to show her that the way out was through; I needed to show her that it could be done.

Without completely removing my hand from her arm, I stood, turned and seated myself carefully next to her. I let my hand trail up her arm to rest on her shoulder blades, echoing that touch that had acknowledged so much once before, and began to explain what happened.

She was silent as I told her how she ended up in the Tower, of finding her wounded and the reason J'onn put her under. Her fingers slipped from her hair to her knees and she straightened marginally as I explained the way the doctors had taken care of her wounds, but she still didn't turn to face me. When she finally raised her head and the curtain of hair fell away, I saw her gate firmly in place over her expression but a spark of anger in her eyes. I could almost visibly see her gluing herself back together inside, fitting all her armor back in place as I spoke. Soon enough though, I was out of words I knew and left with the one succinct question I needed to ask.

"Diana, what _happened_?"

For an agonizing moment, she was silent, shaking her head minutely as she closed her eyes. Finally though she spoke, her voice no more than a trembling breath on her lips.

"It was nothing I wish to remember, Kal."

It was not a deflection this time. It was a plea. In those few words, she was begging me not to ask her to talk about this. I couldn't go back now though.

"I can understand that, Diana," I said gently, pressing my hand marginally harder against her back. "But I'm only asking because I want to help you."

The betrayed look in her eyes as she finally moved them from the dead space before her to rest on me was my answer. This wasn't going to be easy. But there was no backing out now.

I withdrew my hand from her skin and turned more fully to face her.

"Diana, you were starting to come apart back there. I have _never_ seen you like that. The reason I came and found you in the first place was because one of the medical caravans said someone was throwing debris and nearly took out three of their medivans. You were clearing a building and not even paying attention to where you were sending the pieces of it. Diana, you could have hurt someone with the way you were acting, and you nearly killed yourself by not paying attention to your wounds."

She looked somewhat guiltily down at her chest when I said that, her hands moving from her knees to press gently on the places where the bullets had gone into her.

"I'm still here Kal," she whispered, finding the edge of the dressing around her shoulder and beginning to unwrap it. There was a faraway look in her eyes though, and I knew those words weren't really true.

"You may be sitting here alive, but your mind is a thousand miles away. You're trying to distance yourself from what you feel, but it's just removing you from everything else. Your sense, your logic-"

"I don't make the same mistake twice," she cut in. The last of the bandage came away cleanly, revealing nothing but a fully-formed scar, already fading into the landscape of her shoulder. She touched the mark gently, almost contemplatively…

"Diana, saying that what you did back there was a mistake implies that you knew what you were doing and happened to make the wrong choice. What I saw back there-that wasn't you. It was your emotion acting out through you. And this-" Impulsively, I caught her hand from her shoulder, an action that made her finally turn to face me and fix me with that steel-sapphire gaze, "This isn't going to get any better until you face everything that brought you here."

There was a flicker of understanding in her eyes, but of course she was going to make me say it…

"What exactly are you referring to, Kal?" The words came out with sharp edges, an attempt at sounding like a threat, but I knew it was only the broken pieces inside of her that gave her any abrasiveness now. If she wanted me to write my own sentence, so be it. I would do anything now to see this through.

"Something happened back there that you don't want to remember, but it's eating at you from the inside. You might be able to keep it dormant, lock it away for days, months, maybe even years if you're determined enough-but it will only make it a hundred times more painful when you finally let it out. You're denying yourself a natural reaction and it's tearing you apart from the inside. You could have hurt someone back there- you were so focused on controlling your tears that you forgot everything else…"

She looked up into my eyes sharply, jerking her hand out of mine.

"It is not in an Amazon to submit to a weakness," she said in a voice that finally had a firm foundation under it. _Always falling back onto anger for strength…_

She turned stiffly away and stood to her feet, her intention of escape evident. When she immediately swayed though, the after-effects of her blood loss still undermining her intentions, I couldn't help jumping to my feet to steady her by catching her elbows. She tried half-heartedly to push me away, but I wasn't letting her run anymore. I had let her deflect my efforts, divert my attention, pretend this wasn't real for too long_._ I had let it come to this, I would be responsible for what happened now.

"Would you _stop_?" she said wearily, her hollow voice swelling as her frustration grew. "If you keep this up I will tell you to leave-"

_Then I had better get right to it._

"Tell me something, Diana, explain this to me, and I'll leave you alone. Why do you Amazons not cry?"

It all came back to that, I finally understood. And if I could understand this one thing, maybe I could find a way to dam the lake it fed.

She glared up at me, obviously intending to finish this argument with her prepared reply.

"The Amazons have shed enough fruitless tears for the tragedies of the past. Not a single tear remedied those evils. Therefore, it is not permissible for a woman who calls herself a warrior to ever indulge grief in the place of action."

She held his gaze firmly, daring me to press any more, venture any further into the minefield before me. I was silent for a long moment, still holding her firmly in front of me, land staring down sea, and in those beats of stillness I tried to comprehend the truth she had just revealed.

It all suddenly made sense. The shadow that haunted her expression in those times she saw the worst of the world…it was merely grief, in its most raw and undisguised form. It was an understandable emotion-hurt for a world she could never truly rescue, loss when there were lives she didn't save, righteous anger and genuine sorrow. But for her, grief had only one alias, a form that only warrior women would consider weakness-tears.

I remembered then a storm-smashed coastline and her efforts to displace the feelings that dragged her towards the edge, and suddenly I understood why she'd behaved the way she did in the warzone. She was defending herself from weakness by reminding herself of her strengths- her capacity to withstand a hurricane, her drive to work through pain, her ability to bring me to my knees with a single, well-placed blow... It all made sense.

And yet no sense at all.

"Are tears considered weakness even when they are not motivated by self-pity, but by sincere grief over loss?" My words seem to jar her from a dazed stare and she looked up at me again, brow creased.

"What do you mean?" She didn't seem to remember that this was one question too many...

"In my experience, tears are an expression of grief, which is the human response to the loss of something we loved dearly," I clarified, still not letting go of her arms.

"I'm _not_ human," she reminded me cuttingly, "nor am I common. I am a warrior and I am royalty and therefore I have to hold myself to a higher standard. I have to control my reactions. You said it yourself- letting that emotion in made me dangerous."

_Ah, so she was hearing me after all…_

"Yes, it did, but that's because you were channeling it into the wrong thing. You weren't allowing yourself to _feel_ that grief. You were stuck in the anger stage and not allowing the sadness to touch you- so all that emotion had nowhere to go but into that anger. But you won't be able to move on until you let yourself feel the heavier counterpart of grief- the sadness. It's the most fearful thing because it feels like you just plunged into a dark ocean that's deeper than it is wide. Sometimes you feel like you've gone so deep that you can't even see the light of the surface anymore. Sometimes it feels like it's crushing you and you feel like you've forgotten how to breathe."

"You're not doing a good job of convincing me that _feeling_ is the wise thing to do…"

"Then think of it as a _challenge_, Diana," I said, abruptly releasing her arms and taking a half-step back. "I _dare_ you to tell me what happened in the warzone, and I _dare_ you to feel let yourself feel it as you remember."

A challenge, I guessed, was the only way she would ever consent. And when she glowered at me, one hand twitching like she wanted to strike me, I knew I had guessed right.

"Fine," she muttered, her tone full of acid. "Where do you want me to start?"

I felt only relief though to hear that corrosive question. "How about you start there?" I said, letting my fingertips brush the new scar on her shoulder as I pointed at it. _If she was willing to let it all in, see and feel everything she'd been fighting to ignore, then maybe, just like everything else, she could distill it to its barest truth and accept it for what it was._

"All right. But for Hera's sake, sit down and stop watching me as though I'm a bomb about to detonate. You'll have your story."

She pointed to the chair I had pulled to her bedside, and I went equably to sit in it. As I did, she turned slowly towards the window and began to tell her story.


	11. Chapter 11

"You know what the objectives were," she began, her feet seeming to move without thought as she spoke, carrying her aimlessly around the room, "achieve a cease-fire and then coordinate negotiations between the two sides for peace, then assist with relief in any way possible. You saw the battle, you know it was nothing extraordinary-lots of guns and grenades…" She faded out for a moment, clearly falling into the memory, then gathered a breath and dictated it to me.

"I had just snapped a rifle in half and borne the soldier carrying it to the ground when I looked up and saw a young boy in army fatigues only a few feet away from us. I assumed he was a prisoner of the rebel army-_why else would he be in the middle of all this_-so I yelled at him to hide until the firing stopped, and went right back to binding the hands of the soldier pinned beneath me. It never once occurred to me that the child was there for any other reason…"

Realization shuddered through me as I suddenly saw where all this was going. _So this was her undoing…_

"I felt the pain before I realized that the gunshot had been directed at me," she said, slower now, as she stopped pacing and stood still before the glass. "The bullet went through my shoulder and knocked me backwards, and but I came up with my hands raised to deflect a second shot if there was one. The pain was staggering of course but I forgot it as soon as I saw him holding the rifle in rigid arms. A child had shot me…a _child_…"

My heart wrenched at the pain in her voice, my hand tightening reflexively into a fist. _Of course._ No mere human could have simply overpowered Diana, it could only have been something she had never seen coming. And I could bet she had never heard of child soldiers, never known to anticipate them in areas as undeveloped as where we had been.

The story began to come out of her faster.

"I yelled at him to put the gun down, but of course he didn't move. We faced off, my open hands still raised against his gun. Talking peace had not worked with this boy's leaders, but I thought perhaps it could work with him, so I kept talking. 'It's all right,' I said in English first, but when he only blinked in response I attempted the limited words I knew in the local dialect of this area. 'It's all right, I'm not here to hurt you, but you must trust me. Don't shoot.' His eyes widened when he heard me speaking his language, his arms going limp with the gun in them, though he kept it pointed at me."

_Of course she had tried to talk him down. Of course she had not seen a threatening soldier, only an overwhelmed child._

"I approached him slowly, my hands still raised in peace, until I was close enough to place my hand on the end of rifle and push it gently to the side. He was staring transfixedly at me, leg trembling as though he had the urge to run, but I laid my other hand on his shoulder to keep him there. 'You don't have to stay here,' I attempted with a nodding gesture towards the conflict around us, almost certain my words were coming out a jumbled mess, but he seemed to understand me. 'We need peace. You don't have to fight anymore. Are you ready to go home?'"

She fell silent, her hands resting against the glass, every muscle I could see gradually pulling tight again. I fought the urge to rise and go to her but kept my word to stay, let her stand on her own feet for as long as she could. I could only watch with bated breath as the cracks within her fissured deeper, but soon the silence stretched thin and I thought I had lost her.

"Diana?" My voice seemed to call her back and she straightened her shoulders, pulled her hands away from the glass and finally turned to me. Once again, she was the embodiment of that shadow, but now there was little semblance of _her_ left. All I could see was her pain. She was remembering it, I recognized; she was feeling the source of all the pain again and fighting hard to not to let it crash down upon her. But she needed to say it, needed to acknowledge it…

"What _happened_, Diana?" I asked as sincerely and gently as I could. Her eyes met mine, flickering like smoldering embers.

"I offered to take him home, Kal. And he said, 'Home is gone.' And then I was on the ground."

I saw the weight gradually increase on her shoulders as she pushed a hand through her hair and began to pace breathlessly around the room again. The crack was webbing its way up the wall of the dam, trickles of water working in reaching tendrils through the stone.

"I just don't _understand_," she suddenly said out loud in voice like broken glass. "_How?_ How can these people keep doing this to each other? How can they knowingly kill and maim and destroy their brothers and sisters, just because they feel there is a higher cause?"

Her shaking hands tightened into fists as she turned towards me again, but I had a feeling she was barely seeing me anymore. _She's not just talking about the people we saw today…this goes far beyond that…_

"This will not _end_. No words I can say, no campaign I could lead- none of it will be _enough_ to keep this from happening somewhere again in the future. They will keep doing this- they've been doing this for thousands of years and what good have any efforts to stop it been? What good have any of us done? I just don't _understand_…" The last words made no sound, the initial silence of a fall from a great height.

And suddenly, the tears were there.

For a suspended second, she just stood there without breathing as the tears slid down her cheeks, looking as startled by their sudden appearance as I was. As she drew a shuddering breath though, her face crumpled, and even as she covered her mouth with her hands I heard a tremulous whimper escape her lips. Everything inside her seemed to implode, collapsing in on itself like a house of cards, and her body followed suit. Her knees gave as though the heaviness upon her was suddenly too great, and then she was falling, one hand reaching out for something firm to hold onto…

It didn't matter what she had commanded before- I wasn't about to let her fall alone.

I moved without thought, crossing the distance between us in a single movement, her hand landing in mine and the rest of her falling into my arms. I slowed her descent as we both sank to the floor, supporting her gently by the shoulders as her legs folded beneath her and she crumpled against me, weeping. I wanted to hold her, pull her to my chest fold her into me, but I couldn't do that to her, not when she had already let one monumental barrier fall so dramatically in front of me. I couldn't ask her to forsake the other.

Wordlessly, I pulled the abandoned quilt from her bed and draped it around her shoulders, giving her at least one thin barrier between herself and my touch, then eased her back against the foot of her bed and sat down beside her. She didn't fight me at all, collapsing into my side as I slipped my arm around her and drew her in, cradling her head against my chest like I had wished I could have done in that last momentous storm.

We sat there in the non-silence as her grief flooded out in a deluge of tears, a storm of its own loosed from within her. She seemed more than overwhelmed by the force of it all, almost as alarmed as she was anguished. The confusion in her eyes and the strength of her tears made me wonder how long it had been since she had last cried. She was hardly breathing, barely managing shuddering gasps around her sobs, and I felt her panic growing as she shook within my embrace. I tightened my grip around her and rested my chin against the top of her head, surrounding her from all sides with solidity like an attempt to contain an explosion.

"Just breathe, Diana, just think of the breath you're taking and nothing else," I said softly against her hair as she trembled within my embrace. "Breathe with me." I drew a deep, intentional breath and felt her chest press against mine as she did the same. Gradually, I felt the shudders in her body dissipating. "That's it. Just keep breathing," I said softly, pressing my hands against her body through the blanket as if strength could diffuse from one person to another with just enough pressure.

She wept for a long time.

I held her as it all poured out, watching in reverent silence as the overwhelming flood swept through her, breaking everything from its foundations. The grief for what she'd seen today wasn't all I was seeing bleed from her soul now; it was everything painful she'd experienced in this world of ours, everything tragic and terrible, everything devastating and horrifying. All things she'd feared she would drown in, an ocean of unknown that she'd never allowed herself to dive into.

And sadly, she still hadn't wanted to today. I had just been there to force her hand.

I don't know how much time passed before her tears subsided, but by the time her shaking stopped and she dried her tears with the strap of her dress, I doubted she had any voice left. It was for the better, since as soon as she glanced up at me and I saw the traces of shame still lingering in her eyes, I knew what I needed to say.

"These things we call tears, Diana?" I said softly, catching the last bead of moisture as it slipped from her chin like a raindrop in a desert, "You've been taught that they're a sign of weakness, a sign that you've failed. But all anyone else sees is a sign that you're human. That you lost something you cared about deeply. And that you're willing to let others see that."

She closed her eyes and tipped her head back down against my shoulder but didn't turn away. Though I had a feeling she was focusing on stitching herself back together inside, I prayed she would hear what I said as the words flowed without restraint.

"_Greif_ is a complicated word because it refers to everything that follows a great loss-and I think that's what you're feeling now. At first it's just shock. Disbelief. Horror. Then you find yourself denying it. Wanting to find some way that it can't be true. But inevitably you realize that it is as awful as it seemed, and then you feel anger. Anger at the cause of it all, anger at the people around you for not understanding…and then when you finally let that anger go, you find yourself empty. Broken. Full of sadness that doesn't seem to end for a long time. But it does start to lift, and that's what we call acceptance. It's not pretending like something didn't happen, or that it didn't matter, didn't hurt greatly. It's accepting that life is always going to be different now…but it's going to go on and it can still be life worth living.

"You're feeling grief for this planet, Diana. For these people. Because try as we might, we can't keep them from turning against one another. You're right when you say we just can't prevent this from happening again. We can't change that something in certain people will always be determined to cause conflict, fight each other, knowingly harm and hurt and even kill each other, and lead others to do the same. We can't be everywhere, we can't prevent every conflict, and as much as we wish we could, we will not be able to save every life."

We had had this conversation years ago. But I had forgotten that truth sometimes needs restating.

"There will be days when you wonder why you are still doing this. Why you keep giving your time, your strength, your heart to a people who can never really repay you for what you're giving to them. And there are some days that you'll wonder why it still matters. Why you even care about these people that you don't actually belong to, can't truly relate to. But on those days, you have to remind yourself of all those reasons why you started doing this in the first place."

She surprised me by finally speaking then from beneath my chin, a toneless question in the voice she'd managed to restore. "Why do we do this, Kal?"

The one question that was impossible to answer. I could only speak for half of the we.

"Why do we protect them? I can't speak for you, but I know for me it's because I've chosen to love them in spite of everything. And real love always demands sacrifice."

I realized then that I was combing my fingers through her hair, the familiar, unthreatening touch I had grown so used to resorting to. Even now, all barriers were down except one.

An image of a storm-tossed sea flickered through my memory- leaping from the cliff and desperately hoping she would follow but knowing it was her choice to make…

"It is a dangerous thing, Diana, to let yourself care about a people, even more dangerous to care especially for one person. It's putting yourself at risk, and it goes against our survival instinct. It's willingly leaving your heart open to any wound that person, or those people, could purposefully or accidentally inflict. But loving someone like that- that's the only way we get to _truly_ feel what this world has to offer. It's the only way we truly get to live. To venture out into open water, fearfully hoping that that person won't leave us. It's in that adventure that we know we're truly living, as we experience every joy and every hurt. And most of all, this pain I know you're trying not to feel right now…that's how you know you're really alive."

My brain was trying to take control of my words again, reminding me I was admitting too much, but my heart wasn't done speaking yet.

"There's something critical you have to remember, Diana." She looked up and met my eyes as I faced her intently, one hand smoothing her hair out of her face. "We might be considered this world's heroes because we have gifts that set us apart from everyone else. But in the end, we're _human_ because we are never completely separate. We will always feel for a people that we don't belong to. And that's what actually makes us heroic. What makes you a wonder."

She bit her lip and ducked her head again, but not before I saw the storm of emotions rise once more behind her expression. I wondered then if I had done more harm then good, if she would ever be able to control her emotions as before.

"I'll never forgive you for this, Kal," she muttered unthreateningly into my shoulder, and I caught a laugh as I realized we were thinking the same thing.

"I think I can live with that, Diana. There are worse things to be hated for." I ruffled her hair gently, wondering if she would ever let me hold her like this again.

But she lifted her head then, and as I turned to meet her vibrant eyes, one of her hands slid out from beneath the blanket to rest lightly against my cheek. It was nearly too much to fight in that moment, so I closed my eyes and tipped my forehead to rest against hers to keep myself from doing anything else. We breathed in sync and I wondered if she understood how hard it was for me to do so little.

"I don't deserve you," she suddenly whispered, soft words heavy with emotion. Cryptic words that said so much and so little, but words that, either way, weren't true.

I drew back and our eyes opened at the same time, our gazes meeting with the force of magnets aligning. Without letting myself think twice, I slid my hand from her shoulder to cradle her face, a long-awaited touch that now had only resolve behind it. Her eyes captured mine, that fearless gaze returning, trying to take my words from me, but not this time.

"Diana…you deserve _every_ good thing this world has to offer you. To live in this world, to give and bleed and sacrifice for it…for that, you deserve every wonderful thing it could give back to you. So don't you ever say you don't deserve happiness. Because it's this world that doesn't deserve something as wonderful as you."

She had done it again-drawn a confession out of me with absolutely no effort on her part, and again I felt the mixture of horror and hope fill me simultaneously as I realized she had just glimpsed the piece of my heart I had tried my best to camouflage. And still I found myself unable to take my eyes off hers, because I needed to know- needed _her_ to know…

She didn't flinch but I watched her eyes suddenly flood with tears again, perhaps the last thing I had expected to happen. She seemed just as startled, and her hands flew to hide her face, concealing her vulnerability still an automatic reaction.

This time though, I couldn't let it go.

I caught her hands in mine and stopped short her effort to mask her emotion, and when her eyes pleaded with me to not ask for any more, I returned the sentiment with equal intensity.

"Let it go Diana," I whispered, years of emotions distilled into one simple plea. "I'm right here. Just let go."

Her eyes closed though and she ducked her head, and at first I was afraid I had crossed the line at last and asked too much. I prepared myself to be pushed bodily away, asked to leave, told forcefully to leave her alone…

But she did none of that. Instead of fighting it again, she let the tears fall, and when she sank against me once more, I gave in and held her against me as tightly as I could. My heart cracked within me in that moment though as I considered that even now, she probably didn't understand, probably had no idea how much this meant to me-how much _she_ meant to me. But I couldn't say those words-this wasn't the time for that- so I just held her like it was the last time because I knew it might be.

I might have been content to stay like that with her forever, but all things do pass, and I could tell she was still a little relieved when she was able to get herself under control again. As she raised her head, her forehead scraped along my jaw and our cheeks brushed each other, the inebriating nearness scrambling my thoughts for a second. It took every ounce of my willpower to lower my head and press my hands against the floor instead of taking her in my arms again. She moved at the same time though, scooting marginally away and straightening her back, strength seeming to return to her limbs as she let the blanket fall from around her body. Sliding apart felt like being stripped of a layer of skin, and despite the warmth that had been compounded by our contact, the jealous cold air immediately slid in to fill the space that returned between us.

She leaned back against the foot of her bed, pushed her hair out of her face with both hands, smiled at the ceiling and muttered, "I must look like hell…" But then she looked over at me and smiled, eyes sparkling again with vitality and sincerity, and I was so overwhelmed that I couldn't even speak. Stripped of all her reserve, her composure, and even her uniform and tiara, eyes red-rimmed and bandages still around her chest, she was an absolute mess. And yet the sight of her had never shattered me as it did in that moment, because that was when I knew for certain what I'd wondered since that night in Paris.

She was not impossible-she was real.

I got to my feet quickly so that I could offer a hand to help pull her to hers, and when she stood on her own feet without swaying, I felt an exhausted sense of relief flood through me. What I'd made her do hadn't broken her further. It had begun to solder the seams back together. I smiled without thinking, the thankfulness probably evident on my face, and she returned the expression. Only when she squeezed my hand gently did I look down and realize that she hadn't let go of it yet.

It was that same picture I had thought I'd only see once, our hands embracing each other without one turning itself carefully away. Her hand was wrapped in mine but not dwarfed by it, and as she looked down too and closed her eyes with the smile still on her lips, her palm rotated intentionally and our fingers entwined without thought. Then she took a small but momentous step forward, closing the gap between us again, freed her hand from mine and slid her arms around me for the first time. My arms returned the gesture and I marveled at the sensation of another person filling the space around me precisely- our frames fit together, her curved edges accepting my rough angles, softening the sharp points, filling the voids and displacing everything between us with her warmth. I felt her heartbeat pressed against my own, the twin cadences within us forming countermelodies as they pounded out life. I couldn't help turning my head and letting my lips brush her forehead, our connection taking every other thought hostage.

"Diana," I breathed against her skin, the only word I could remember though there were surely a million things I wanted to say.

Her forehead brushed my jaw as she lifted her head and her fearless gaze drew mine like a magnet. She slid one arm back between us and she smoothed her fingertips tenderly over the new scar on my brow before resting her hand against my cheek once again, warm and intentional. "It's all right, Kal," she whispered, her words ghosting over my lips like phantom messengers. "I know."

And then, before I understood what she meant, she leaned in and kissed me.

It was so unexpected that in that explosive instant, every other thought disappeared without a trace. The universe ground to a halt as we stood there, her lips pressing mine unhurriedly for an eternal instant and her hand cradling my cheek. When she gently broke the kiss and drew back just enough for us to look each other in the eye again, I saw hers blazing once again with life.

"I know," she whispered again as she tipped her forehead against mine, her fingers weaving into my hair and giving it a familiar, gentle tug. "I know."


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's note: You spoke, I listened. Here's your final chapter. Enjoy!**

"Kal."

The single syllable, low and gentle, reached through the darkness of sleep and drew me to the surface. My eyes blinked open and saw first the open balcony door with its curtain stirring gently in a breeze, then landed on the figure kneeling next to my bed, her chin resting on her folded arms only inches from my face. In the moonlight slanting through the window, she nearly glowed.

"Diana?" I said confusedly as I pushed myself up on one elbow, my face displaying my bewilderment. "What are-"

"I know I said a few days, but that was for your benefit, not mine," she said, rising gracefully from the floor and moving like a ghost across the room as I sat up fully and swung my legs out of bed, head swiveling to follow her movement through the half-darkness.

"Diana, what are you-"

"Please, Kal. After all the times you've caught me in personal moments and places, I figured you could survive me returning the favor at least once." She was suddenly in front of me again, dropping my cape in my lap and I could only watch, utterly baffled, as she made her way back out onto the balcony.

"Get dressed and come with me." Her voice held no suggestions and revealed no intentions. It was a simple demand. And I could only smile and get to my feet to oblige.

When I joined her out in the cool night air a moment later, I finally processed that she was scrubbed clean and wearing a new uniform, her tiara and lasso securely in place on her person once again. In moonlight, everything is shades of gray, but I could still see the depth of color had returned to her flesh and her eyes flickered again like open flames as she smiled at me through the dark.

"How are you feeling?" I asked automatically, marveling at the transformation.

Only a few hours ago we had left the Watchtower together and I had seen her safely back to her apartment in the States. We barely said a word from the time she pulled away from that single, fleeting kiss, something I might have thought I'd imagined if it weren't for her hand that remained in mine. She had stepped back from my embrace, gathered the remains of her uniform and effects into one hand, then taken mine in the other and led me from the room, making it quietly clear that nothing else was going to happen there. It felt natural, walking with her hand in mine as she led me silently to the transporters, but my thoughts still reeled, overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of impossible things that had happened in the past few hours.

When materialized on her balcony moments later as the sunset scorched the sky red around us, she had turned and met my gaze for the first time since the moment of that kiss. Her hand left mine to rest on my shoulder, a gesture that somehow managed to be tender even when I felt she was also bracing us apart, demarcating what was and was not going to happen in that moment.

"I'm sorry to leave you like this…" she began, the ragged edges of her sincere tone revealing her exhaustion, "but this has already been a life-altering day. I'm going to need a little time before I can face another. Give me a few days to put myself back together, and then...we'll see each other. I promise."

There had been no option of discussion, but she had squeezed my shoulder gently in a way that catechized me to understand. It did not escape my notice though that all she had promised was a reunion- nothing more.

I had expected more than a few hours to pass before she resurfaced though. And I certainly hadn't expected an entrance like the one I had just witnessed.

"I feel…a lot of things," she responded lightly to my question as I shut my balcony door behind me. "_Cleansed_ might be a good word to start with." She offered a smile as she turned fully to face me, and I saw the shoulder that had displayed a bullet wound only a day before.

"That healed well," I remarked, reaching out to brush my thumb over the faint scar, a nick in the perfect sculpture. That minute etching on her skin that was the only clue that any injury had ever occurred, barely visible even to my eyes.

She looked down and covered my hand with hers, squeezing it gently even as she drew it deliberately away from her shoulder. "So did yours," she said as she dropped my hand, her eyes flickering to the new scar on my brow as she rose into the sky and I followed, perplexed as she turned eastward.

"Where are we going?" I asked as we rose higher into the atmosphere. I followed her flight pattern effortlessly but was becoming more and more disconcerted by the moment.

"When has that ever mattered?" she responded simply, not turning back.

There it was again, one of those cryptic comments that could mean so much or so little. She was back to pulling me along, leaving so much open to interpretation, a slew of possibilities that could be the end of me if I let myself think each one through. More than anything, it was a sign that things were slipping back to normal.

Exactly where I had hoped we would never return.

We flew in silence for a while, my own thoughts a traffic jam and hers a mystery. She never once looked over at me, as though she never doubted my presence, and I for some reason felt my irascibility growing. She couldn't pretend like nothing was different, not after everything that had happened in the past few days. Yet this felt exactly like before- a scrim positioned between us so that I could never be completely sure of the actions or intentions on the other side.

We were somewhere over the Atlantic, suspended between the interminable sea and infinite sky, when she finally spoke.

"I had a dream when J'onn put me under," she said softly, her voice not the haunted echo from the day before but now firm and intentional, assured of its direction. "I was standing on a cliff looking out over a stormy sea. I knew without doubt it was a dangerous and uncertain endeavor, yet everything in me felt a need to dive off that cliff and go see for myself what adventures awaited there."

A non-memory of the same image trickled in from the back of my mind. _The whole scene sounded so familiar…_

"I wanted to go out there and be right in the middle of it all, but the sensible, pragmatic side of me said it was madness. That there was nothing out there that was worth the risk of pain if it didn't go well. I looked back at the land and saw everything I knew well- my home, my guidance, my mentor-as my only other option. Staying at the cliff's edge was only a temporary solution. I knew I had to choose but couldn't make a decision…And then, you were there too."

_She had the same dream._

Startled by the revelation, I looked over and watched her face. She still didn't look at me, keeping her gaze trained straight ahead as she turned our flight down back through the cloud cover.

"You looked at me and offered me the chance to go with you, a promise that whatever happened, I wouldn't be in it alone. And still…even then, I couldn't make that leap. I was afraid. A word I never wanted to be associated with, but you called me on it. You knew exactly why I wouldn't go. Yet you didn't force me to go with you; you just showed me it could be done. Even when something gave me the push and I fell not by my own choice, you were right there waiting, ready to catch me…and I'm guessing by the look on your face that this picture sounds somewhat familiar to you."

She turned and hit me with that knowing expression and bemused smile, the Mona Lisa incarnate. I could only laugh and shake my head disbelievingly as we broke through the clouds to the world beneath and I saw a glittering city spread out below us.

_Paris._

She led me wordlessly through the sky to the exuberant _Tour Eiffel_ shining a radiant gold through its black exoskeleton, shamelessly reaching up from the lights below for the stars above. She touched down gracefully on the spindled arms of the radio tower at the very top, and as I landed next to her she finally turned to face me.

"We never made it here that day, did we?" she said rather than asked, stepping closer until her hand brushed mine gently, an echo of the touch I had offered her before we left the Tower…before everything-_I thought_-had changed. "I think we missed out."

It was a stunning view indeed but I stood like a stone next to her, more overwhelmed than ever. She wasn't taking everything back to normal, she was pulling me through time all the way back to when there was no _normal_ for us. To a time when all I knew of her was the warrior princess who had joined the League, and I had come seeking the other side. All these years later, and still she was shielding something from me, something she was determined even now to allude to but not admit. Even after everything that had happened in the past few days, she was still unwilling to say exactly what she felt.

_It could go on like this forever_, I realized. She was certainly capable of following through any course of action she set before herself. And if she was determined to not let herself admit any more than she did before because she thought it didn't matter, then I had no doubt she could do that. She could keep her guise up perhaps her entire lifetime if she was determined enough.

But I knew that would never be true for me. The words that had tumbled through my mind since the last time we were in this city together were now rattling so loudly I could hear nothing else. And I knew it was time, finally time, to say them.

"Diana," I said quietly out over the city, "I'm sorry, but you can't keep doing this to me."

In my peripheral vision she looked over at me, seeming marginally surprised, but didn't say a word, her eyes asking only for an explanation. I felt the finality of the moment settling on me and nearly backtracked, but conviction dug in its heels and spurred me forward_._ I trained my gaze away from her, stepping carefully across the spindled arms of the tower until I was right at the edge, closed my eyes and started to speak.

"I know you think it shouldn't matter, but it does. You can't know how hard it is for me to be this close to you and always be holding myself back. Always arresting the words I want to say, always restricting myself from holding you as close as I wished I could. Every time you touch me, it gives me both hope and regret because I don't think I'll ever be able to honestly say that I don't want more. I wish I could hold back like you, Diana, but it's not possible. I lost my heart to you a long time ago on a bridge right here in Paris. Since then, it's been no one's but yours, for better or worse."

I opened my eyes but didn't turn to face her reaction, whatever it was. I filled my gaze instead with the seamless sphere of lights formed by the city below and the stars above, pushed a hand wearily through my hair, and went on.

"I've told myself every single day that I was a fool for losing my heart to you. I tried telling myself that you didn't see me that way, that there was no hope of anything else between us, that you had your reasons for holding back and I wasn't a good enough reason for you to forsake all that you know. All this I knew, and yet it's never made a bit of difference in how I feel. You're still the single most amazing thing in this universe to me, and if I ever lost you, it would be like the sun falling out of the sky. You're warmth and reason, you're my guidance and my gauge, and somehow everything in my world has come to revolve around you. And because the last thing I ever wanted to do was drive you away or betray your trust, every day has been for me an exercise in self-control. To not tell you the things I want to say or love you in the ways I wish I could. You keep doing this things though that give me hope that we're not completely impossible and at the end of the day we're left in this unbelievable _between_-more than some things and less than others. Yet if going on like this keeps you from disappearing from my life, it's worth that to me, because when I'm with you…I feel whole. You're the only person who has seen every side of me, the good and the bad and the impossible to relate to, and somehow you take it all and remain completely unfazed."

I finally turned and saw her watching me with that inscrutable gaze, her eyes focused and attentive but her expression betraying nothing. _Back to that, are we? So be it. _I didn't hide the overwhelmed smile I couldn't help from fluttering across my face as I shook my head and continued.

"You're as impossible as me, you know that? You walk through all these worlds with eyes wide open and yet you, unlike me, manage to make yourself an amalgam of the best of all of them. You have never once apologized for or tried to hide who you are-to me, the League, or the world, except for that one part that you've kept so closely guarded- your pain and your fears. And so every time you open yourself up, show me a little bit more, trust and allow more than you ever did…it's the best and worst thing you can do. Not only because it becomes even more painful when you backtrack and pretend nothing is different, but also because I will always feel like I'm lying to you. So please, Diana, don't you do this. Don't you come any closer if you don't intend to stay right here next to me where I've always wished you were. Don't make me lie to you any more."

I was nearly breathless by then, my stomach twisted in knots of lead but my heart lifting in my chest as the burden of unspoken truth was lifted word by word. My mouth had been speaking without my brain, but in the breath of silence my mind finally kickstarted and reminded me there was one more thing to say. I drew the breath like it might have been my last, letting it out slowly to placate my pounding heart as I ended my confession.

"Anyway…that's everything. I know you never wanted it, but you've got my heart and it's yours to break or bury. And if what I've just told you means the end of us…it would break me of course, but I would understand. We may not have a choice on when we fall in love, but we can decide who gets the opportunity to hurt us. And Diana, it would only be a privilege to have my heart broken by you."

Only silence followed those words.

She was still for a long time, just holding me captive with her gaze, her glowing face betraying nothing as we faced off in the suspension between earth and sky. I could only stare, barely breathing, watching her every trace of movement and waiting for the inevitable shift of the earth in one direction or the other. She closed her eyes and exhaled an understated sigh but didn't move, made no motion forward or backwards, and I thought that might be the only answer I would get. But then she raised her head, fixed me with a convicted gaze, and started to speak.

"I think you're right. Nobody _chooses_ this, do they? No sane human being would leave herself open to the worst pain imaginable if she had any choice in the matter. But that's the whole problem with it all- you don't get to choose when you fall in love. One minute you're just going though life making your own choices and so sure of the world you know. If you're determined to not fall in love and let yourself get hurt, you can hold yourself at arm's length from the entire world for years if you're dedicated to fortifying that wall constantly."

She paused, and a flicker of a smile passed across her face. "All it takes to change everything is for someone to come along who makes you reconsider, makes you think it just might be worth it. It's not breaking down that wall, instead they make you feel like that wall never existed. They shake your world to its foundations and the next time you look, your heart isn't where you left it. Someone else has it. And it's the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced."

_Did the world tilt or did I imagine that?_

She looked away for half a heartbeat, as though drawing courage from an unseen aerial source, and as she turned her magnetic gaze back to me I nearly trembled as I saw her take a small but significant step towards me.

"It's not really fair, what love does to us, is it? It takes everything else inside us hostage and overwhelms us until we do everything acknowledging its presence, whether by defiance or submission. And for a long time, I was determined not to submit. Not just to love, but to all the other new and dangerous things I discovered by leaving my old world for this one. Things that I have never felt before, things that make me feel utterly overwhelmed and completely out of control. My natural impulse was to master it, keep it submitted to my own will. But you saw how that backfired with the way I tried to master grief. Control became my very downfall. But love's not about control is it? It's about giving control up."

Her gaze glittered in the half-light, and I realized with a jolt of surprise that she had tears in her eyes. She took another small step closer, and the very air around her seemed to hum.

"There's nothing more dangerous than caring about one person- you told me that, and I know it's true. It's opening yourself up, venturing into open water, hoping they won't leave you or be taken from you. It's the craziest, bravest, most nonsensical thing a person can do, isn't it? And for a long time now, I've been trying to understand if it's worth it, if a person could be more than what I've been taught all men can be. That dream wasn't just about giving up the nature that said tears were an evil and a sign of failure. It was calling me to face up to the truth: my heart's been lost to you for a long time now. You've just been waiting for me to figure it out…and to decide on my own if I wanted to jump. If I wanted to let go of all I've known in order to discover the new mysteries that seem so dangerous, so vast and so unknowable."

There was air in my lungs, but I couldn't get to it for some reason. She blinked and the tears ran freely down her cheeks, catching the light like golden cascades. She didn't wipe them away though as she took a final step to bring her only inches from me and raised her gaze fearlessly- _fearlessly_-to meet mine. Her hand found mine and our fingers entwined automatically, her pulse charging through her veins and her skin blazing warm with life. My other hand slipped without thought to cradle her cheek, thumbing the tear tracks and confirming that everything I was seeing was actually real…

"You didn't leave me when I was at my darkest. Somehow you've seen all the parts of me, the best and worst, and you're still here, unfazed. If you were going to give up on me, you would have done it long ago. And that was what I needed to understand too-we don't get to know the future, whether it all turns out well and is completely worth it. But...we'd be in it all together, and that's all that matters."

Her hand slipped from mine and she reached up to hold my face in both her hands, everything about it intentional, declaring its meaning loud and clear. When she spoke, her voice was thick with emotion, but she smiled through the tears, her glittering eyes were brimming with abandon.

"I don't really know what will happen- to us, to _this_- I don't know if we can love each other this much and still be the people the world needs us to be…it's all part of this vast unknown. But I know that no matter how many days we have left to us- whether the end comes tomorrow or a thousand years from now- I know don't want to go into this unknown with anyone but you."

And it's a good thing she kissed me then, because I don't think I could have held myself back a single second longer.

_Fin_

**Author's Note: Thanks for giving me the boost to write one last chapter. It's been a great process and I'm thankful for all everyone's encouragement along the way. It was a little weird having this process overlap the release of the Kal/Diana issue (definitely didn't see that coming when I started posting at the beginning of the summer) but seriously **_**so awesome **_**to see the way the comic echoed what we shippers have been saying for years and the theme I based this story around- they're the only people out there for each other. They're both caught between all these different worlds and ultimately understand each other because they each know what it's like to be able to traverse everywhere all and settle nowhere.**

**Anyway, I had fun writing, I hoped you enjoyed reading. Please one more review for the road?**


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